The 2021 Best Small Firms to Work For: Cask Government Services

Client Industries Served: Department of Defense, Federal and Civilian Government Organization

Consulting Service Lines: Strategy and IT

How would you say you've managed to stay among the industry's Best Small Firms to Work For amid these unprecedented times?

We focus on our people and empowering each to be a driver of the best value to our customers. We encourage external training across multiple disciplines. We keep abreast of industry best practices, technologies, and frameworks. Prior to the pandemic, Cask positioned itself as a mobile workforce, and provide tools and processes to enable this. This assisted our transition into the 100% telework environment without disruption to our clients and partners. We encourage an entrepreneurial mindset that is always seeking new ways for value, whether that be in people, processes or technology, and to keep ahead of ever-changing technology trends.

Were there any specific programs or initiatives (internal or external) that contributed to you being a Best Small Firm to Work For?

Cask is a huge proponent of work/life balance. We firmly believe in supporting our employees mental, emotional, and physical wellbeing. Cask offers programs to support wellbeing, such as physical fitness challenges, paid gym memberships, virtual and in-person socials, a generous PTO package and a variety of health and wellness classes. Throughout the pandemic, Cask has held virtual social events and gatherings which encouraged our team to remain connected to each other, which has been particularly critical and beneficially to our individual and collective well-being.

What is unique about your firm? What sets it apart?

Cask has always provided both short-term and long-term growth opportunities for our employees, and we strive to create an environment that encourages both professional and personal development. We seek to hire and cultivate employees (we call Coopers) who are artisan- engineers – adept at crafting services and solutions to fully support our customers. Cask provides strategic consulting services to the DoD, Federal Government and Industry with short-term transactional consulting projects and functions in a more traditional capacity as a services provider on Government Contracts. This mix of services fosters an innovative mindset and willingness to continually drive value for our customers.

What's the top priority over the next 6 to 12 months?

We are very focused on our Security and Compliance sector over the next 6 to 12 months. As a recently approved CMMC Third-Party Assessor Organization, or C3PAO, for industry, we see this as a real growth sector for the industry. Cybersecurity compliance is a factor for all organizations, including the DoD, Federal and the Defense Industry Base. We can help measure and track compliance across CMMC, NIST, FISMA, HIPPA, FEDRAMP, and the Supply Chain.

When you look at the remainder of this year and 2022, what excites you? What opportunities do you see in your markets?

Cybersecurity and Compliance for industry and DoD is a large market. All organizations need to be able to measure and provide metrics against multiple frameworks. Cask is an advocate who offers Compliance as a Service (CaaS). Our offering provides a real-time solution and dashboard for leadership. It provides a tool to automate manual, labor-intensive tracking and documentation creation/ It provides leadership the metrics needed to show compliance against multiple frameworks.

What impact do you think being a Best Small Firm to Work For has on the firm? Employees? Clients?

This is always a great way to attract new employees and validates the hard work of our current staff. We strive to maintain a culture that is forward-leaning for our customers and employee-centric. It also provides a third-party stamp of approval for potential new hires and clients that we are a great place to work for and with.