Who is Visionary Integration Professionals? Why Did It Run the Dem’s Military Leadership Diversity Commission?

Gateway Pundit Jim Hoft posts about the Military Leadership Diversity Commission set up in 2009 by the Democrat-controlled Congress. He reports that the Commission wants Congress to weaken standards to allow more minorities into the Armed Forces.

A so-called “independent report” ordered by Congress in 2009, and released by the Commission a short while ago, claims the “U.S. military is too white and too male at the top and needs to change recruiting and promotion policies and lift its ban on women in combat.”

Additionally, the Associated Press writes: “Stretching the definition of diversity, the report also said the military must harness people with a greater range of skills and backgrounds in, for instance, cyber systems, languages and cultural knowledge to be able to operate in an era of new threats and to collaborate with international partners and others.”

So, we ask, exactly how “independent” is this Commission? Its website is hosted on the official .mil network. The long list of Commissioners is a who’s who of retired military officers and is headed by Retired Air Force General Lester L. Lyles.

Since Lyle’s 2003 retirement, he has been an independent-consultant-for-hire. Lyle also serves on the boards of at least two heavy-hitting military contractors, General Dynamics Corporation and KBR Incorporated.

Another interesting board member is Ms. Shamina Singh, who possesses the most impeccable of progressive credentials. Currently, Singh is the Chief Operating Officer and Senior Vice President for Citi’s Global Community Relations division.

However, prior to her joining Citi:

Singh spent fifteen years working in the public policy and political areas to include Deputy Executive Director of America Votes, Senior Advisor to Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives (then Democratic Leader) Nancy Pelosi, the U.S. Department of Labor’s Congressional Liaison on health care reform, and director of the first White House Initiative and Presidential Commission on Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders. She is a Fellow with the Aspen Institute and serves on the national board of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America where she chairs the National Nominating Committee.

It doesn’t get any proggier than this — a Pelosi-ite, an America Votes astroturfer (ACORN, SEIU et al.), and a verified pro-abortionist.

However, what is even more interesting — and a bit more than curious — is the fact that the Commission is staffed by no less than EIGHT members from the firm Visionary Integration Professionals LLC of Folsom, California. VIP claims it helps its clients solve business problems.

VIP was founded in 1996 as a global information technology solution provider.

In a June 2010 interview, VIP’s founder and CEO, Jonna Ward, said VIP is the parent company to Meridian Knowledge Solutions, a company that “provides software (including learning management systems) and services for delivering, tracking and analyzing training over the Internet.”

The Washington Post did a mini profile on VIP, which says the company was involved in “Top Secret Work” with TSA and had one government contract involving border security, information technology, and law enforcement.

Muckety accessed USAspending.gov to find that VIP is also contracted with the U.S. Department of Defense and the FBI.

But it goes way beyond this. VIP boasts 900 clients with the federal government client list including all branches of the military, nearly all government departments, and an alphabet soup of agencies.

In January 2009, VIP was among more than 100 companies that encouraged the newly-sworn-in POTUS to include “strategic investments in digital infrastructure [as] a vital part of America’s economic recovery and called on lawmakers to include them in the economic stimulus and recovery plan [then] working its way through Congress.”

In March of this year, VIP was selected as one of thirty-three prime contractors to provide IT services for the IRS under the TIPSS-4 ITS contract.

But, and it’s a big BUT, how does this information about VIP connect to an alleged Democrat-established Congressional commission? What’s VIP’s connection to diversity in the military? And why THIS company?

Next question: Why does this company have access to and control of so much of our country’s information?

Could it be that proggie PC term “diversity”?

Could it have anything to do with the fact that VIP is a Hispanic-owned, woman-owned business? Is that reason enough to concentrate so much power in the hands of one company? Is this why Ward’s company is in charge of leading the military along the utopian path pushing for more diversity — and possibly more federal contracts for VIP?

Alas! 2012 cannot come fast enough!