Sunday, January 11, 2009
Progression despite the recession
A handful of New River Valley high-tech firms are growing and hiring.
Photo by Justin Cook | The Roanoke Times
LimbGear's Noggin Net complete with VT logo and earbuds.
Photo by Justin Cook | The Roanoke Times
Rex Card, shown with his dog Snickity, is a technical project manager for Mailtrust. The Blacksburg-based company provides e-mail and business software.
Photo by Justin Cook | The Roanoke Times
Tyson Daniel quit his job as an attorney to start the Blacksburg-based venture LimbGear, which sells "MP3-enabled" apparel.
The latest from The Ticker blog
BLACKSBURG -- The company president offered an invigorating take on his company's fortunes.
"Right now, we're looking to fill a dozen engineering and software development openings and, depending on future growth, we could have more opportunities that open up beyond that," said Pat Matthews of Mailtrust.
"We're defying the norm."
Job cuts have shaped public views of the current economic situation.
The encouraging counter is that some companies are growing even though the overall economy is not.
Some companies are finding fortunes on the Internet. Others are bringing out products and services in support of other, innovative technologies.
All while the economy is in a recession.
Here are a few examples from the New River Valley technology sector:
Mailtrust Inc.
Chief Executive Officer Matthews wants to add a dozen engineers and software developers at Mailtrust in Blacksburg -- not bad for the dark days of a recession.
The company provides e-mail and business software hosting to clients globally.
Mailtrust, formerly Webmail.us Inc., had five employees in 2004. Today it is a division of San Antonio-based Rackspace Inc., which earned $5.2 million, or 4 cents a share, on revenue of $138.4 million during the three months that ended Sept. 30.
Ninety Mailtrust employees and the division leadership are based in Blacksburg and focus on research, product development and strategy, while a like number work in San Antonio in sales and support.
Mailtrust doesn't release the number of clients it has. But the company offers several intriguing statistics for public consumption.
E-mail boxes up and running under company support: 750,000. Average number of e-mails processed per business day: 60 million.
Matthews said the outlook is positive. As companies and organizations shift to outsourcing their business software services, Matthews expects Mailtrust to grow.
Modea Corp.
In the same office complex off Prices Fork Road in Blacksburg as Mailtrust is Modea Corp., another business that is moving forward in spite of things.
The Modea team creates Web sites and much more for a stable of major national brands.
It sold baby products company Graco 16 Web sites in 15 languages for marketing to European consumers. Modea built a heavily used demonstration site for the T-Mobile G1, an Internet-linked phone with software by Google and hardware by High Tech Computer Corp. that was released in October.
Hasbro, Sharp, Seiko, ITT and Advance Auto Parts have used Modea, too.
"We've been rapidly growing this business over the past two and a half years," said David Catalano, the company's president.
The company is growing again.
Catalano and co-founder Aaron Herrington -- Virginia Tech graduates who have finance degrees along with years of creative services industry experience -- are advertising eight full-time openings in a global employee search.
The jobs, including senior project manager and executive creative director, pay $50,000 to $125,000. Entry-level jobs and internships also are open to qualified applicants.
They say the business will grow as advertising spending continues shifting to the Web.
NanoSafe Inc.
NanoSafe is pursing a big idea in a small world -- the nanosphere, made up of objects as small as a few billionths of a meter.
The Blacksburg company offers independent, third-party testing of nanotechnology products.
"We can quantify ... safety," President Matt Hull said.
Nanomaterials are powerful and require safe handling. Objects behave differently when downsized to a few billionths of a meter. They may react more energetically to light, heat and electricity or become incredibly strong -- creating opportunities as well as the risk of unintended consequences.
Nanoscale scientists already have spent two decades improving consumer goods. Examples include more protective sunscreen and harder, lighter baseball bats.
They foresee similar results in medicine, energy and drinking water.
As the industry expands, Hull, a Pulaski County native and graduate student at Virginia Tech, said he believes that users of nanoscale materials are looking for greater transparency around the potential environmental health and safety risks posed by their operations.
So Hull has built a service business in which he and scientists he recruits can perform research, testing and consulting for companies, government agencies and organizations seeking to use nanomaterials safely.
Much the way Underwriters Laboratory became the product safety testing company for a host of everyday products from fire extinguishers to microwave ovens, NanoSafe hopes to become a premier evaluator of nanotechnology products.
Recently, NanoSafe tested the containment properties of a laboratory fume hood -- it's first product test -- and gave the hood a passing grade. The maker, Labconco of Kansas City., Mo., is free to label the hood with NanoSafe's mark: a black N inside a pentagon.
Steve Gound, president of the laboratory equipment company, said the designation "is something we will promote as outside, independent verification of the performance of the product in our literature and advertising materials and reporting."
That's feedback welcomed by Hull, 30, who is studying for a doctorate degree in civil and environmental engineering at Virginia Tech and who hopes, after he completes his degree, to take NanoSafe to the next level.
LimbGear
In spite of a recession that some fear could be severe, while many are hunkering down, Tyson Daniel of Roanoke quit a $73,000-a-year job as an attorney.
He's gone into business for himself. His venture, LimbGear, sells "MP3-enabled" apparel.
For starters, there's a $21.99 skullcap with a rear pouch for a small portable media player. For an additional $7.51, you get ear buds on a short wire that are held in place by the hat -- a favorite of nationally known gadget guru Steve Greenberg, who plugged the Noggin Net on NBC's "Today Show" the week after Christmas.
LimbGear also is selling a $15.49 armband MP3 holder that comes in three sizes depending on bicep bulk. Both products are intended to interest people with an active lifestyle, the company says.
Daniel was asked what the six-employee enterprise must do in 2009.
"Generate revenue," he said.
WeighOut LLC, the parent company, does not release financial information.
He noted that in spite of the nation being in the middle of an economic storm with no end forecast, the audience of LimbGear is the large and growing population because of the huge popularity of personal electronic devices.
Apple, for one, said it has sold more than 150 million iPod portable media players.
Daniel, 37, is propelled by passion for nurturing something he created from scratch.
Plus, he had tired of the psychological demands of being a senior assistant capital defender in the Christiansburg-based Office of the Capital Defender for Southwest Virginia. He spent nearly five years representing people charged with capital murder, meaning, they were at risk of getting the death penalty.
Late last month, he moved the business from the basement of his Roanoke Valley home to the Virginia Tech Corporate Research Center.
"This is not an opportunity that I want to pass up," Daniel said.
