Physical Security · Critical Infrastructure
Security for the infrastructure growth depends on.
Data centers, AI campuses, switching centers, energy assets — the physical layer of the digital economy. Orbital Federal helps the people who build and operate it protect it to the standards the government wrote for its own most sensitive facilities.
Why Now
The buildout is historic. The exposure is physical.
Hundreds of billions of dollars of data centers, AI campuses, and network infrastructure are going into the ground — faster than the security thinking around them.
Most of that thinking stops at the firewall. But the asset itself is concrete, fiber, power, and people — and the threats to it are physical: intrusion, sabotage, theft, hostile surveillance, insider access, and the slow risk of a facility designed without security in the drawings.
The federal government has spent decades codifying how to protect facilities that cannot fail. We bring that discipline — ICD 705, NISPOM, FAR, NIST — to the owners, developers, and operators of the private infrastructure the economy now runs on.
What We Do
Four disciplines. One standard of care.
Engage us for a single assessment or across the life of a facility — from site selection to accreditation to steady-state operations.
Security Assessments & Risk Advisory
Threat, vulnerability, and risk assessments for operating facilities and sites under consideration — a clear-eyed baseline and a prioritized roadmap, not a sales pitch.
Start here → 02Security Design & Engineering
Perimeter, access control, screening, surveillance, and response — designed into new builds and retrofits from the first drawing, not bolted on after.
Learn more → 03ICD 705 / SCIF Consulting
Design support, construction security, and accreditation preparation for SCIFs and secure spaces — to ICD 705 and the IC Tech Spec, without the rework.
Learn more → 04Compliance & Program Support
FAR, DFARS, and NISPOM alignment, security master planning, and owner’s-representative program management — so requirements become practice, not paperwork.
Learn more →Our Baseline
We speak the standards.
The strongest physical-security doctrine in the world was written for government facilities. We apply it fluently — and translate it for private owners.
- ICD 705 & IC Tech Spec — construction and management of SCIFs and secure facilities
- 32 CFR Part 117 (NISPOM) — the National Industrial Security Program rule
- FAR & DFARS — security-relevant contract clauses and flow-downs
- NIST SP 800-53 & 800-171 — physical and environmental protection controls
- NERC CIP-014, UFC 4-010-01, TIA-942 — grid, antiterrorism, and data center criteria
How It Works
A deliberate path, not a pitch deck
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A direct conversation
Thirty minutes with a principal — not a business-development layer. You describe the facility and the concern; we tell you honestly what we’d look at and whether you need us at all.
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Assessment
We walk the site, review the drawings, and test assumptions against threat and standard alike. You get a prioritized, costed roadmap you own — whether or not we execute it.
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Design and execution support
We embed with your architects, engineers, and integrators — vendor-neutral, owner-side — so security intent survives value engineering and makes it into the built facility.
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Standing counsel
Facilities evolve; so do threats and standards. Most clients keep us as a quiet, senior resource — reviews, audits, accreditation cycles, and the phone call before a decision.
Who’s Behind It
Two principals. Federal-grade. Private-sector fast.
Orbital Federal was founded by Tristan Flannery and Ryan Bauernschmidt — both service-disabled veterans, both shaped by careers in the federal space across multiple agencies, both MBAs who crossed into the private sector deliberately.
We kept the firm small on purpose. The people who assess your facility are the people whose names are on the door — and the standard of care is the one we learned protecting the government’s own.
Meet the principals →“Economic growth runs on infrastructure. Our job is to make sure the infrastructure holds.”
Orbital Federal · Firm Ethos
Common Questions
Asked by almost every owner, the first time
We have guards and cameras. Why do we need you?
Guards and cameras are components, not a design. The questions that decide outcomes — where the perimeter actually is, what the threat basis should be, whether the response plan survives contact, whether the facility would pass a government-grade inspection — sit above any single vendor. We answer those on the owner’s side of the table, vendor-neutral.
When should we bring you in on a new build?
Before the drawings are frozen — ideally at site selection. Security decided in design costs a fraction of security retrofitted after commissioning, and some requirements (setbacks, hardening, SCIF adjacencies) are effectively impossible to bolt on later.
Do you work on classified or government-adjacent programs?
We support ICD 705 secure-space design, construction security, and accreditation preparation, and we build to NISPOM and FAR-derived requirements for contractors and owners who carry them. Specifics belong in a direct conversation, not a website.
Are you a large integrator or a staffing firm?
Neither, deliberately. We are a boutique advisory practice — two principals and a small bench of cleared, vetted specialists. We don’t sell hardware, resell monitoring, or place guards, which is exactly why our recommendations can be trusted.
Next Step
Find out where your facility actually stands.
A direct conversation with a principal costs nothing and commits you to nothing. If you don’t need us, we’ll say so.
Prefer to talk? 866.960.7475 · info@orbitalfederal.com