Twenty years after founding HX5, Margarita Howard still describes the work in personal terms. “Working side by side with civil servants and the military, supporting their respective missions, is a privilege. I love this business and the work that we do. I’m extremely proud of it,” she says.
That sense of purpose began before HX5 existed, during Howard’s military service and her time on the team that implemented Tricare, the Department of Defense’s health care program. “I was part of the Tricare implementation team when it was first introduced. Before that, the military’s care had never been managed in such a fashion,” she says. She later managed Tricare operations across Florida and then seven states in the Southeast as a regional director.
FROM STARTUP TO FEDERAL CONTRACTOR
Founded in 2004 and based in Fort Walton Beach, Florida, HX5 now employs more than 1,000 people across 34 states and 90 government locations, providing mission support services to the Department of Defense and NASA. Howard credits steady, deliberate choices for that growth rather than any single breakthrough, from the company’s early use of the federal 8(a) program to her later push toward competitive bidding.
WHAT KEEPS HX5 RUNNING
Howard points most often to her people when explaining HX5‘s staying power. “We were very selective of people that we chose for our management team. And really, I could not be more proud of them,” she says. Many of those leaders, several of them women, have been with HX5 for 10 years or longer, a track record Howard treats as her proudest achievement outside the mission work itself. As federal spending on defense and infrastructure climbed in 2024, Howard says that same team is what keeps HX5 ready to meet the moment.
Looking back on the path from Tricare implementation to running a company with more than 1,000 employees, Howard says the throughline has always been the same commitment to service. That consistency, more than any single contract win, is what she points to when asked why HX5 has lasted as long as it has. Visit this page for more information.
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