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Who is this guy who claims with a straight face that he wants to get this Dallas Cowboys buy?
Das Nobel turned his head when the state awarded him a $ 295 million contract last year to run the Texas contact tracing program for coronavirus victims.
Even though it’s federal money, it’s a lot of money to go to someone that no one has heard of.
Several readers have contacted The Watchdog with questions about this. One of them wrote: I don’t really know what the money is for.
I haven’t seen or heard anything about the progress of the project and the results of the investment, wrote another. Could you take a look at that and report the results to the readers?
The watchdog is happy to do it.
Giants knocked out
At first, it was a real outsider story. Nobel, who arrived in America from Bangladesh as a teenager 25 years ago, beat some of the world’s best-known brands to win the contract.
MTX Group, his little-known company headquartered in Frisco, knocked out giants like IBM, AT&T and Accenture to win an emergency contract.
His work? In less than a week, build a dedicated Texas contact tracing call center.
When MTX won, legitimate questions were raised by competitors, journalists and politicians, Republicans as well as Democrats in the legislature. A group of Republicans even sued to stop the contract, which did not have legislative approval.
Why did the Texas Department of State Health Services ignore the public release process and invite 11 companies to bid? Why did companies only have 48 hours to prepare a proposal? And why was the offer not awarded until five days later? Response: The state was in a great hurry to organize a statewide tracing system in the midst of the pandemic.
Why choose a company that had little experience in contact tracing? Answer: Which company did this a year ago? Nobel promised a quick setup, which happened, but for the first few weeks the program didn’t go smoothly.
Why did Nobels’ LinkedIn profile say he had a PhD when he had not completed his thesis? Answer: An embarrassing error was corrected after it was reported.
MTX offices in Frisco, TX. (Shelby Tauber / Special Contributor) A Fast Process
MTX, as promised, built a call center in four days, ultimately hiring 600 Texans to staff it. The service was offered to every county. San Antonio is the largest city to use the center.
People who may have been exposed to an infected person could talk to a telephone operator, find out their status, and learn to take care of themselves.
In January, the contract was renegotiated with the state. As of this week, MTX has been paid $ 46 million. Nobel says it will likely hit $ 65 million, a quarter of the original total MTX will never hit.
Did it work? As much as contact tracing can work when people aren’t answering their phones or returning calls. Many consider tracing to be intrusive and an invasion of privacy.
Plus, with thousands of new cases appearing every day during the peak of the virus, it was impossible to keep pace.
State health services spokesman Chris Van Deusen said: They had the best deal. It was a quick process, but it was a fair process. In the end, they did what they said they were going to do.
In a state audit of MTX performance released this week, no major issues were found.
In his office, Nobel, a small man with a soft voice, says to me: We await a close examination. It is taxpayers’ money.
The exam is what he has.
Obtain state contracts
When I ask him if his brutal initiation into Texas politics left him bruised, he says it wasn’t as difficult as when he was new to America, didn’t speak English and had been beaten by four boys.
He was nicknamed Gandhi and it took him a while to figure out that his classmates were confusing India with Bangladesh.
Her father, a teacher, moved the family to the United States for a better life. His father couldn’t teach so he got a job as a diver.
Six years ago, Nobel launched MTX, whose name is a tribute to one of his favorite films, The Matrix. Take out the vowels, he explains, and you get the MTX.
MTX specializes in software creation and data management, serving governments in areas such as licensing, immunization records and tracing.
Before the pandemic, MTX had contracts with 13 states. This has grown to 30 states. What’s her secret to gaining so many states so quickly?
We bring speed, he says. This is his mantra. Big companies can’t go that fast, he explains. It was like a fighter plane. We can take left and right turns very quickly.
That speed was what garnered approval from Texas officials to award it its biggest government contract.
He tells me he’s using the credibility he earns with one state to impress another. He calls it rinse and repeat.
Often we say: try your luck with us. Give us two weeks and let us build something.
The company also has contracts in Australia and India and hopes to expand into Canada.
Face adversity
When the criticism hit a year ago, he says, it was initially a big surprise and a distraction.
Did it bother me last year? Yes, maybe for an hour. You have been taught to face adversity and to keep your cool. He focused on the job because he knew he could get the job done and help save lives.
When the politicians took legal action to stop the contract, his lawyer told him not to worry. The costume was discarded.
Matt Hirsch, former political adviser to Governor Greg Abbott, now advises MTX. Hirsch told The Watchdog, There is no doubt that MTX’s big competitors weren’t happy to lose this contract, and they naturally had an interest in trying to discredit the CEO and the company.
For strength, Nobel quotes Nelson Mandela: I am the master of my destiny. I am the captain of my soul.
Buy the Cowboys?
Football enabled the young Bangladeshi to make friends and gain acceptance in the United States. As a tribute, MTX is the main sponsor of the FC Dallas jersey. You can see MTX in big letters on the front of each player’s jersey.
A FC Dallas shirt bearing the name MTX is framed in Nobel’s office in Frisco. MTX is a sponsor of the team. (Shelby Tauber / Special Contributor)
State lawmakers had the final say on this. In the new state budget, the money for the MTX contract is set to zero.
MTX’s contract now likely ends on August 31, the last day of the state’s fiscal year. Tracing may no longer be necessary anyway.
Before leaving his office on Cowboys Way in Frisco, I ask Nobel about his alleged desire to buy the Cowboys. I expect him to smile and laugh. But that does not happen.
I would love to buy the Dallas Cowboys, he said. For real. He even names the target year 2027.
Dream big, explains the one who is master of his destiny and captain of his soul. He is no longer an outsider.
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The Dallas Morning News column Watchdog is the 2019 winner of the National Society of Newspaper Columnists’ top column writing award. The contest judge called her winning entries models of suspenseful storytelling and public service.
Read his winning columns:
* Help the widow of Officer JD Tippit, the Dallas Police Officer killed by Lee Harvey Oswald, to be buried next to her late husband
* Helping a waitress who was injured by an unscrupulous used car dealership
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