Identifying and meeting needs

Fantastic 50
TECHNOLOGY
TTC Inc., Arlington
ttcin.com

TTC Inc. co-founders Jose Rojas and Frank Vella believe in reinvesting in their Arlington-based company. “If you want to have a growing company, you have to reinvest,” says Vella, the company’s vice president and chief financial officer. “We put our resources into what helps us grow.”

That growth made TTC the top technology company in the Fantastic 50 this year. The company’s revenue rose 1,123 percent from 2009 to 2012.

Rojas and Vella opened the company in 2005 after working together in the telecommunications industry. At the time, they were working as subcontractors, Rojas with the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) and Vella with the Department of Homeland Security. 

All the while, the two were building and marketing their company. They landed their first prime contract in 2009 with the TSA to provide SharePoint content. SharePoint is an information management collaboration tool. “We got very good reviews on our performance and they increased the size of the contract,” Rojas says.

TTC now has grown to 54 employees. Rojas and Vella look for potential team members who are customer focused. “We want to have the right people and the right approach,” Rojas says. “We offer our team members competitive salaries and a good benefits package.”

The company provides an array of information technology services such as network design and installation, custom application, software and database development, data center networking, communications design and installation, mobile application development and Microsoft SharePoint. TTC also offers content management and customer solutions through the Microsoft product.

“Often when customers hire us, they are not seeing the benefits from their SharePoint site that they thought they would see. If it’s not user friendly, people won’t use it,” Vella says. “We put structure to it and train people in the agency. We identify their needs and try to solve them.” 

Whenever possible, TTC prefers to be a member of the review team when a client moves to a new software platform. “We can make sure the new application will mesh and work,” Vella says. “We can be a proactive team member and partner with the customer to look toward the future.”

Winning government contracts was challenging at first for the company. “We knew how to do our work, but we didn’t know how to be government contractors,” Vella says. “We hired people to help us make the business contacts and learned ways to do business with the government.”

In addition to its Arlington headquarters, the company has an office in Baltimore. “We also have employees at different customer sites,” Rojas says. “And we work with subcontractors; all total we have over 60 employees.”

The company’s contracts are split evenly between the Department of Defense and other federal government agencies. It also works with a limited number of commercial customers.

Last year, TTC won a major contract with the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) to deploy and train its staff on SharePoint and to develop content management applications.

Earlier this year the company won a contract to provide video teleconferencing support for the U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command. “We are supporting a four-star general in that project,” Vella says. 

Explaining the company’s rapid rise in revenue, Vella says, “Everything contributed to that — the quality of the product, reinvestment, good retention of staff. The more we do what we do, we realize that all these facets need to work together and function properly.”

The company continues to develop new lines of business, adding a project management arm as well as a SharePoint training and development arm. “We hope that will lead into other IT training and projects,” Vella says.

TTC also is discussing mobile application projects with various government agencies. It has developed mobile apps for commercial clients for several years. “It will be an additional line of work for the company, and it will add extra value for the agency. It’s a win/win,” Vella says.