Software helps companies stay in compliance

Qualtrax, a new company in an old building in downtown Blacksburg, develops software that helps customers wade through documents.

“It simplifies compliance for industries that are under a heavy burden due to the nature of the work they do,” says CEO Amy Ankrum. Qualtrax customers include forensic labs, power companies and medical-device manufacturers.

“The software handles records they need to manage. It gives them the ability to automate processes that might be paper-based or email-based,” she says.

Qualtrax became a standalone business last year after being part of Christiansburg-based CCS Inc., now FoxGuard Solutions, for more than 20 years. 

“We were a subsidiary all that time of the larger company. Last year we decided to officially split the organization out, primarily because we are growing, looking for new ways to fund the organization,” says Ankrum, a Virginia Tech graduate who had been with Qualtrax and CCS since 1998.

Since the split, the company has grown quickly. Qualtrax now has 33 employees, 12 of whom have been added this year. Ankrum says the new positions are in sales and marketing, software engineering, training and customer support.

Compliance issues are always changing, she says. This year many customers that follow ISO 9001, a standard setting requirements for high-quality management systems, are updating from ISO 9001:2008 to ISO 9001:2015.

“We’re helping them. And we’re taking time to make sure we educate ourselves,” she says, adding, “We are ISO 9001-certified ourselves.”

Qualtrax is located in a former Masonic Lodge building in Blacksburg that dates to 1927.

“We’ve preserved a lot of the building” while adding a few flourishes, Ankrum says. “We have a disco ball [that is used] to celebrate every time we have a customer win.”

The company also has a video game room in the basement and provides employees with fluffy slippers when they arrive each workday.

“It’s important for people to enjoy where they are, for it to be welcoming. They spend a lot of time there,” Ankrum says.

In April Qualtrax received the 2017 Rising Star award from the Roanoke-Blacksburg Technology Council.