 Shawnee Huckstep
Shawnee Huckstep
2860 S Circle Drive
Colorado Springs, CO 80906
(719) 591-9966
Colorado Springs, CO – March 18, 2008 – The State of Colorado’s Small Business Administration has named Ms. Shawnee Huckstep, President and CEO of TechWise as its Small Business Person of the Year. This prestigious award is presented to an entrepreneur who has developed an outstanding, growing business. “Shawnee Huckstep is a perfect example of the ingenuity and innovation that small firms possess here in Colorado and the nation” said Elton Ringsak, SBA’s Region VIII Administrator.
Ms. Huckstep co-founded TechWise with her husband, Arran Huckstep in 1994. TechWise provides technology and engineering professional services, full-scale education and training development and implementation, and a wide variety of military exercise/ war-gaming / digital training and simulation services. TechWise is an 8(a) WOSB and a SDB with proven program management capability and robust infrastructure support for successful execution. TechWise is headquartered in Colorado Springs and has operations in 8 states: Colorado, Florida, Kansas, Louisiana, Kentucky, Missouri, Texas, and Virginia. The company has over 100 full time employees with approximately 300 part-time on call employees and expects to exceed 11 million in revenues for 2008.
As CEO of TechWise, Shawnee is a respected mentor, visionary and leader who is ultimately responsible for the decisions that drive the TechWise business. Her key external role is building and managing relationships with public, academic, business and government leaders.
In 2002, Shawnee was honored by the Colorado Springs Business Journal as one of the Top 25 Dynamic Women in Business. Shawnee recently received the 2007 Small Business Person of the Year award from the Colorado Small Business Administration. In 2007, Shawnee was also selected for The Inspiring AmbITion (emphasis on the IT) project which is a collaboration of four Colorado universities that are organized through the Colorado Coalition for Gender and Information Technology (CCGIT). She will be featured in the DVD which profiles a diverse sample of Denver-area IT professionals to be used for recruiting women and minorities into computing/IT programs.
Shawnee strives to balance a passion for individual success with a deep appreciation for the diverse talents, viewpoints and contributions of others. Her father, a physicist and esteemed mentor, taught Shawnee the essential nature of listening, asking intelligent questions and staying curious in the deepest recesses of one's heart. Shawnee often has "strong feelings" and intuitive insights that drive her to honor the ultimate spirit of the TechWise vision: one of respect, honesty and responsibility to the larger community.
 Arran Huckstep
Chief Technology Officer/ Co-Founder Arran Huckstep's love of learning has been the basis for everything he does. He has been a voracious reader his whole life, often reading a book a day when he was younger. His astonishing test scores led to two academic scholarships, a full National Merit Scholarship along with an full Air Force ROTC scholarship to Baylor University.
While attending college full time, he and his wife started a consulting company automating small retail business with Point-Of-Sale and Inventory Control Software. Before he left Waco, he had created end-to-end custom software solutions for six businesses.
Arran graduated with a Bachelors degree in Computer Science from Baylor University in 1995 and was then commissioned into the United States Air Force as a Communications officer. After a year he asked his commanding officer for permission to begin moon-lighting again, and began supporting commercial customers in the Colorado Springs area with custom software solutions. He also obtained vendor certifications such as a Microsoft Certified Solutions Developer, Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer, and Cisco Certified Network Associate. When he separated from the Air Force in 1999, he dedicated himself full time to his growing consulting business. Within six months he won a large contract with a Fortune 500 company- Philips Electronics- to create a global supply chain management system for the North American Peripherals Division. This contract would prove to be the catalyst that allowed Huckstep Consulting to gain the past performance and financial resources to become TechWise.
As the business grew, adding employees and gaining financial stability, Arran knew that he needed a strong business mind to help the company achieve it's potential. In 2001 he was able to convince his wife, Shawnee Huckstep, who had been instrumental all along, to leave her job and become CEO of the company, which was rechristened TechWise. Arran has been the Chief Technical officer for TechWise ever since and is best known for his dedication to his customers in the Technology Consulting Branch of TechWise, he still offers a few of our early customers his personal 24/7 support. He has established relationships and managed projects supporting medical complexes, IT firms, government contractors, non-profits, government entities, accounting firms and a myriad of small businesses.
Arran's expertise has also provided TechWise with the advantage of an enterprise class IT infrastructure comparable to much larger businesses.
Arran is currently pursuing graduate coursework to support a PhD in Molecular Biology and working to establish a non-profit supporting medical research.
Arran volunteers with Junior Achievement, the YMCA and the local school reading programs. He still enjoys reading and spending time with his family, Shawnee, Pax, Caden, and McCoy Huckstep, playing chess, and basketball.
Dr. Glen Scott Director of Military Programs Dr. Scott brings a unique combination of military experience and program management background to the job of supporting our military contracts. As a former division chief of staff, infantry brigade commander, senior task force observer/controller at the JRTC, and observer/controller with the Battle Command Training Program (BCTP), he understands the Army and how to support world-class military training and exercises. As a former SRAAG (Senior Army Advisor to the Army Guard), he is deeply familiar with the challenges faced by the Reserve Components in meeting pre-deployment and TSIRT training requirements. From his service on the Army Staff at the Pentagon he understands the challenges faced by major headquarters in meeting requirements in a timely and efficient manner. He also brings significant management experience both from a practical (defense contracting), as well as academic (he holds a doctorate in management) standpoint.
“My philosophy is simple…is TechWise supporting our clients the same way I wanted to be supported when I was in uniform? Are we providing the best possible services, at the highest quality standards, at a fair price? Are we fully responsive to our client needs…to identifying and meeting challenges before they interfere with mission accomplishment? If the answer is yes, then we are doing our job. If the answer is no, then we are committed to doing what it takes to make it right.” Glen Scott
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