Before leading HX5, Margarita Howard served in the Air Force, an experience she credits with shaping nearly everything about how she now runs a defense and aerospace contracting company built around federal missions.
After leaving active duty, Margarita Howard completed both a bachelor’s and a master’s degree while working in the defense industry on the Tricare health care program, the system that provides health insurance to service members and their families. That role gave her insight into how contractors and government agencies work together, insight she later carried into her leadership of HX5.
FROM MILITARY SERVICE TO COMPANY CULTURE
“My background was influenced by military service,” Howard says, describing how that foundation still guides her approach to running HX5 today. The company, a service-disabled veteran-owned and women-owned small business, operates across more than 20 states and over 70 government locations supporting Department of Defense and NASA missions.
Margarita Howard’s military background gives her particular insight into what transitioning service members need from an employer. She has emphasized hiring people with prior Department of Defense or NASA experience, noting that such experience differs from commercial sector work in ways veterans often recognize more quickly than civilian hires do.
That perspective informs HX5’s steady participation in the Hiring Our Heroes Corporate Fellowship Program, through which the company has hosted eight fellows since 2021 at a consistent rate of two annually. Howard’s own trajectory, from service member to company CEO, offers a tangible example for fellows considering whether a defense contracting career fits their post-military plans, one built on a foundation she herself once walked through step by step.
Fellows accepted into the program spend twelve weeks split between direct project work and professional development sessions covering topics such as corporate communication and project management, all while still drawing military pay and benefits. For Margarita Howard, that structure mirrors the gradual, credential building path she followed herself on her way to leading HX5. Refer to this article for additional information.
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