JMU Federal Dukes Spotlight: Kyle Blackburn — Partner at Procession Systems

Professional Bio

I am a part owner of a small professional services company called Procession Systems. We specialize in providing reliable, cost effective recruiting support for highly cleared roles at small and midsize Government Contractors. As a Partner in the business, I have been responsible for architecting our delivery to customers, growing and training our internal team and setting business SOPs and best practices, and spearheading our business development and growth efforts.

JMU Major / Year Graduated

Health Sciences/2015

Why did you choose JMU?

JMU was one of only 3 colleges that I applied to, the others being UVA and VCU. Apart from having new buildings and education courses structured around my desired major of Health Sciences/Pre-PA, the campus was beautiful and the people were down to Earth. I liked that JMU, at the time, had not been as well known as some of the bigger schools in Virginia, but had all the potential in the world to be something great. I wanted to be a part of building that greatness.

How did your degree from JMU lead you to where you are today?

Funny enough, it didn’t really! Not to say that the education wasn’t satisfactory, but the connections I made at JMU far outweighed the impact of having the degree in my unique case. I was able to build this business with one of my good friends from JMU with the guidance of a COB Alumnus.

What does working for the Federal Government community mean to you?

It feels special to be able to have an impact at so many different agencies through our 50+ federal contractors that we supply talented candidates for. As a firm that only focuses on directly placing highly cleared candidates for highly technical roles, we have a unique ability to be able to influence and understand what is going on across the federal marketplace.