Author: Jeff Van Fleet, Lighthouse Technologies
June 2010
In 2009, the Technology First staff approached me about the idea and value of initiating a CEO Council.The thought was to gather the CEOs of Dayton-based information technology companies that might have similarities and common stories and see how we can work together to grow the regional capabilities.The requirements would include that the company needed to sell an information technology product or service, have local ownership, and have a strategy to grow clients from outside the region (i.e., bring in new dollars to the region.)
Since establishing markets outside the area and growing a business have specific challenges,we wanted this to be the focal points for the group and the discussions. As you can imagine, there was some initial difficulty getting a group of busy executives together and also deciding on how best to approach the potential discussion points.
Interestingly, shortly after our first meeting, NCR announced it was moving to Atlanta.This presented a hot topic for our initial discussions.We spent the next two meetings strategizing on how we can help the NCR employees that weren’t asked to relocate, how we can minimize the impact to the region, and how we can work with our regional and state economic development organizations to minimize any future “surprises.”
Today, the peer group has an established membership and is growing and we currently represent over 600 regional IT jobs. In our meetings,we are going through a process where one or two companies present their offerings, their history, the markets they serve, and their current challenges to growth.This allows each of us to understand their business and offer ideas for how we might address these challenges.These discussions are always lively with lots of questions and comments (not that a group of CEOs are opinionated).
In this issue of Technology First, you have the opportunity to learn more about some of our member companies that are making a positive economic impact on the region. Enjoy and as always, keep having fun.
Jeff Van Fleet is the President and founder of Lighthouse Technologies, Inc. which specializes in software quality assurance and software engineering solutions.