In this story, Colorado Springs Business Journal reporter Cameron Moix highlights TechWise’s continued growth in both the United States and the United Arab Emirates. Even with significant overseas and domestic growth and diversification, TechWise keeps its ties strong to hometown Colorado Springs and continues to be a player in the local defense industry and supporter of Colorado-based non-profit organizations.
TechWise continues growth, diversification
By Cameron Moix, Colorado Springs Business Journal
Colorado Springs-based defense contractor TechWise has plans for continued growth this year — diversifying its business offerings and doubling its revenues.
From humble beginnings 20 years ago, CEO Shawnee Huckstep has grown her company into a major Department of Defense contractor working in the areas of training, logistics, organizational improvement, development and education throughout the U.S. and in the Middle East.
The company employs more than 200 people across the U.S. and at its offices in Abu Dhabi and Dubai, which Huckstep relocated to oversee last year, and maintains a number of contracts in each location. Among TechWise’s contracts are four in Colorado, including one to provide support base services at Fort Carson that began Jan. 1.
“TechWise has been doing important work at Fort Carson since 2004, and it is our most rewarding and enduring local relationship,” Huckstep said in a news release last month. “This is our 14th contract at the Mountain Post and we are proud to serve Fort Carson soldiers, and this mission supporting those who deploy and redeploy could not be more intrinsic to the Army mission.”
But despite the enormous growth the company continues to experience, General Manager J Chesney said home is still in Colorado Springs.
“TechWise has done a lot of great stuff overseas,” he said of the 2011 Middle East expansion and subsequent formation of TechWise Global. “But also here in the states and in the community, because we believe in giving back to our community.”
Four of the company’s 10 current U.S. contracts are based in Colorado — two at Fort Carson, one at Schriever Air Force Base and another as a subcontractor to aerospace giant Northrop Grumman. Locally, the company also supports a slew of nonprofits: the Colorado Springs Conservatory, scholarship programs at UCCS, the Procurement Technical Assistance Center and the Boots to Suits program supporting veterans returning to the workforce.
“We’re bringing business back into the community — back into our own economy,” Chesney said.
He said that in the coming year TechWise will focus on continuing to diversify, expanding further into local markets with service offerings that include air traffic control and emergency preparedness and crisis management, which have become of increasing importance to cities along the Front Range.
“That’s where we as a company want to continue to diversify,” he said. “We’ve been here for 20 years, with the ups and the downs, and we’ve become a lean, agile team committed to providing the best value.”
Because TechWise is a privately held company, it does not publicize its earnings, but Chesney said revenue was doubled last year and he expects to see another 40-percent increase in 2015.
“Under our logo it says, ‘improving human performance,’ ” Chesney said. “Everything we do is focused on doing that.”
Published: January 8, 2015
Story and photo courtesy of Colorado Springs Business Journal