History

Founder and CEO Nick Dowling started IDS International to support the government with innovative high-quality solutions to complex 21st century national security problems.  Our first ever government contract, starting in 2007, was to create a new approach to interagency training at the Army National Training Center (NTC).  That model was such a success that soon it spread to all the other Army Combat Training Centers (CTCs) and the US Marine Corps major collective training programs.

Innovation continued to drive IDS growth in military training. Customers turned to IDS for new challenges ranging from Special Forces training to designing the mission rehearsal for the Ebola deployment to Central Africa to replicating electronic warfare in major exercises.

In 2010, IDS opened an office in the Middle East with the goal from expanding from a training company to one that also supported expeditionary operations.  We won our first assessment contracts, providing research both for the World Bank and the US Army on conditions in the Middle East.  Our business in Middle East continued to grow, adding international training and operations and maintenance capabilities to the firm.  By 2012, IDS had over 200 US personnel and 500 overseas employees.

IDS’s rapid growth continued in 2015 with wins of three major contracts, two in the research and assessment space and our largest contract ever, providing Operations and Maintenance Support and Training in the Middle East.  The logistics, engineering, and operations capabilities of this contract opened the door for broader types of support contracts in Base Operations, Maintenance, Construction, and Engineering.  With this win, IDS reorganized into two major divisions, one in Expeditionary Support Services and one in Training.

As part of IDS innovative work in training at the Joint Readiness Training Center (JRTC) in Fort Polk LA, IDS started replicating the internet as part of their exercise program. This initiative, one of the first ever efforts in the military, led to the development of SMEIR, our proprietary internet replication system and the creation of our cyber and information warfare division. IDS won our first cyber and information warfare contract at NTC in 2017.  In 2019, IDS won two major contracts in this space, the Muscatatuk Cyber Training Center (MCTC) cyber range contract in Indiana and the Synthetic Internet Training and Exercises (SITE) contract for the Department of Defense (DoD).

IDS growth accelerated again in 2020 with the acquisition of two world-class training and technical services companies DECO and GovSource.  These acquisitions brought new customers such as the Department of State Global Anti-Terrorism Assistance contract that supports anti-terrorism training with hundreds of courses per year in dozens of different countries. Another is the DoD Security Assistance Training Management Office (SATMO) contract, providing a range of security related training to US partners ranging from vehicle maintenance to the “Ranger School” of Iraqi military.  These firms expanded IDS’ capabilities and truly made us a global company with 1,400 employees in operations in North America, South America, Europe, the Middle East, Africa, and Asia.

As IDS finishes into our 15th year in government services, we remain committed to the values of innovation, quality, and solving the emerging national security problems of our nation.