Success story: IT solutions company Greenwire thrives on dedication
http://www.news-press.com/article/20120212/BUSINESS/302120020/Success-story-solutions-company-Greenwire-thrives-dedication?odyssey=mod|newswell|text|Home|sPaul Rausch started his career at 14, tinkering with open source programs like Linux and building computer servers in his garage.
A year later, his mom had enrolled him in the Rent-A-Teen program through the city of Cape Coral’s Parks and Recreation program. While other kids were offering babysitting or lawn care services, he offered computer repair and information technology solutions for $25 an hour after school.
The connections he made through the program served as the foundation for his Cape Coral-based business, Greenwire LLC.
Many of the clients he met stuck with him over the years, even while he was a student at the University of Central Florida, Rausch said.
“A lot of those customers wouldn’t use anyone else while I was at school,” he said. “They’d schedule me six months in advance.”
With their dedication and referrals, Rausch was able to get the business up and running shortly after graduating in August 2008. In 2009, the business expanded enough to move into his current office in Cape Coral. About a year later, he expanded into the office next door and now has a team of three full-time technicians and a full-time sales representative.
“Pretty much every year we’ve been in business we’ve doubled,” Rausch said.
Today the company has 652 clients and about 395 computers they actively monitor through its helpdesk services with the core from Port Charlotte to Naples, he said.
In 2011, annual sales reached $177,151 compared to the $108,534 the company grossed in 2010 — a 63 percent growth year over year.
Having the right team in place was a challenge, but is the company’s greatest strength.
“You don’t have a lot of people who do this as their passion in this market,” he said.
Many people who pursue information technology careers go to bigger metropolitan areas like Chicago and New York, he said.
Rausch said the company operates as a team. The hierarchy is relatively flat and, while everyone has a specialization, each team member is able to handle all the different aspects of the job, he said.
His team has focused on keeping customers satisfied. One commitment they made was to always have a team member answer the phone, even for after hours emergency calls. About 90 percent of new business comes from existing customer referrals, Rausch said.
Cape Coral resident Art Ober first hired Rausch in 2003 to install new software on his computer and help remove viruses. He’s stuck with him over the years because he gets the job done efficiently and communicates easily “without using a whole lot of fancy words,” he said.
Ober has even connected him to business partners, such as Wolf Tools Technology, a South Carolina-based company Ober does accounting finance work for.
“I trust him,” he said. “It’s one of those things that you feel like you’re going to a car dealership salesman. ‘Do you trust him?’”
To keep up the level of service as the technology evolves, he and his team are regularly taking certification courses.
Among his other network and security certifications, Rausch also has health care IT certification and is a Cisco select certified partner.
It’s just another initiative to grow his company in Southwest Florida and beyond.
“In IT things change so rapidly that unless you’re constantly improving your product, you’re not doing a good job,” he said.
