Sierra Nevada Corporation

The corporation was founded in 1963 by John Chisholm with a few employees working out of an airplane hangar in the Reno Stead Airport. The corporation was acquired in 1994 by Fatih Özmen and Eren Özmen. Fatih Ozmen was hired in 1981. The corporation has since grown into a multi-billion-dollar corporation with over 4,000 employees. The company's main business is completing US Department of Defense and NASA contracts.

In 2016, the corporation built a 130,000 square feet (12,000 m2) aircraft modification facility in Meridianville, Alabama, alongside Madison County Executive Airport. The facility was expanded with an additional 60,800 square feet (5,650 m2) building, which could hold seven Beechcraft Super King Air/C-12/MC-12S planes. SNC began modifying commercial aircraft into military surveillance aircraft, such as the US Army's EMARSS platform.

On September 18, 2024, the People's Republic of China announced sanctions on nine U.S. military industrial companies, including Sierra Nevada Corporation, for their participation in arms sales to Taiwan.

Multi-mission aircraft

In July 2014, the corporations Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance (ISR) business area located in Centennial, Colorado, won a competitive contract to provide and operate two multi-mission aircraft (MMA) for the State of Colorado Division of Fire Prevention and Control (DFPC). Based on the Pilatus PC-12, the DFPC aircraft are equipped with electro-optical sensors and communications equipment that allow firefighters to detect small fires before they grow into large incidents that severely affect Colorado's lives, property, and resources.

As a result of the integration, technology and modifications, the MMA are providing advanced fire detection, location, and behavior monitoring capabilities. The aircraft feature a communications system that allows the aircrew to send collected information to all wildfire response personnel using the Colorado Wildfire Information Management System (CO-WIMS), a web-based collaborative information sharing tool that allows any firefighter immediate access to fire location, behavior, and other critical pieces of information. Colorado has also successfully employed the aircraft in search-and-rescue and environmental assessment missions.

In 2016, United States Customs and Border Protection (CBP) awarded SNC a $280 million firm-fixed-price contract to engineer and integrate 12 Multi-Role Enforcement Aircraft. In 2020, CBP Air and Marine Operations (AMO) issued a delivery order to SNC valued at roughly $47 million for the acquisition of two Multi-Role Enforcement Aircraft (MEA). These two aircraft are the 24th and 25th ordered MEA, and are expected to be delivered early 2022.

Operators:

ORBITEC (July 2014)

3S Engineering (September 2012)

SpaceDev, Inc. (December 2008)

MicroSat Systems, Inc. (January 2008)

Controversy

False Claims Act lawsuit

In 2017, the corporation settled a Justice Department lawsuit that says that the Sierra Nevada Corporation had overcharged the U.S. government on federal contracts between 2007 and 2011 which violated the False Claims Act. They settled without admitting liability, paying $14.9 million.

Lobbying and political influence

In 2007, the Las Vegas Sun noted SNC was "adept at targeting campaign contributions at elected officials who can help it", also noting its active Sierra Nevada PAC, which was created in July 2001.

In 2004, then-Nevada house representative and Armed Services Committee member Jim Gibbons promoted SNC to receive a $4 million no-bid helicopter technology development contract. In the same timeframe, SNC was making political consulting payments to Jim Gibbons' wife, Dawn Gibbons. Dawn was also paid by Jim's political campaign, and a nonprofit set up by the couple also paid Dawn money. These payments were exposed in 2007 by The Wall Street Journal, who also said a grand jury had convened for this and another corporation Gibbons had been entangled with.

In 2009, SNC was tied to lobbying scandals from the PMA Group and Indiana congressman and House Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense member Pete Visclosky. SNC paid PMA Group $280,000 in 2006 for lobbying, and PMA was exposed in a large lobbying scandal. A grand jury summoned Visclosky for documents and later declined to charge him. He was also cleared by the House Ethics Committee, though Visclosky declined to be interviewed by the committee, and there were "troubling aspects" uncovered in the probe. An email from SNC's Dave Klinger justified their requested contribution amounts to Visclosky, stating "He has been a good supporter of SNC. We have gotten over 10M in [earmarks]". Referring to the Klinger email, Steven V. Roberts and Cokie Roberts called the PMA/SNC relationship "a bribe by any other name".

Wuhan Virology Institute report

In 2020, SNC's Multi-Agency Collaboration Environment (MACE) group produced a report shared among the Department of Defense and Congress attempting to demonstrate that the Wuhan Institute of Virology shut down for several days in October, providing evidence for the COVID-19 lab leak theory. The report's evidence was based on patterns of cellphone location data around the WIV during the time period. Similar arguments had been labeled inconclusive by Western intelligence agencies after additional analysis based on satellite imagery.

The report came under heavy criticism and was the subject of a rebuttal in The Daily Beast, which pointed out that the shifting patterns in cell phone data were easily explained by observable road construction. The rebuttal also noted that the report relied on extremely small sample numbers (some as small as seven cell phones for an institute with hundreds of employees). Intelligence and health specialists interviewed by NBC were broadly skeptical of the report, the outlet reported, as were Congressional staffers quoted by The Daily Beast.