Booting Up Some Buzz

Harvey Software has been operating in Southwest Florida for 26 years with little recognition. The company has been too busy to seek exposure, developing bar codes and other shipping software and products for large clients, such as Wal-Mart, mom-and-pop businesses and even a group of nuns that ships homemade caramel at Christmas.

“Most people haven’t even known we were here,” says Bert F. Hamilton, president and CEO of the Fort Myers-based company, which has 10 employees.

A new local chapter of BioFlorida and Southwest Florida Regional Technology Partnership (SWFRTP), which picked Harvey Software as the winner of its 2009 Innovention Award, want to prove that technology companies of all sizes and focuses can be influential in the region.

“It’s kind of like pulling teeth to get [the region] out of the mentality that our livelihood is not going to rely on real estate and tourism through difficult and challenging economies,” says SWFRTP’s Chair-elect Lee Paul, CEO and founding partner of Surround Technologies, a software development and consulting firm in Estero.

Reaching that goal takes more than the momentum from buzz-generating companies such as The Jackson Laboratory and Algenol Biofuels, say Hamilton and others. It requires academic efforts such as the development of the “I-HUB,” a research park under construction in a public-private partnership with Florida Gulf Coast University and Galvano Development, and the school’s training for the technology community’s specific needs. Also, technology companies believe they need to band together, somewhat behind the scenes, to help become one of the region’s key economic sectors.

When companies stick together, a tiny voice becomes larger, which can “make sure that the world sees us,” says Mike Jackson, former economic development director of Cape Coral and a member of the Partnership. The organization was founded about two and a half years ago to catalyze, cultivate and connect technology firms. Growing the membership, which Paul estimates is more than 50 individuals, has been a struggle, not from lack of interest, but because of turnover in jobs and companies through the economic downturn. “The small group that we do have is very enthusiastic,” he says. “It’s just a matter of getting it to go beyond that.”

Even Paul says he didn’t fully realize how many firms were in the area before the partnership began. “They were all very hidden. We’re trying to expose more of that, to let people know that these companies exist down here, that you can move down here and find good jobs and grow the industry as well,” he says.

The BioFlorida chapter, started in 2009, now has about a dozen individuals and company members and covers Charlotte, Collier, Hendry, Glades, Lee and Sarasota counties. It includes companies such as Arthrex, Tigris Pharmaceuticals and Greystone Pharmaceuticals, as well as attorneys, consultants and academics, says chairman Bill Knab of Naples-based Matrix Technology Management.

“The Southwest Florida Regional Technology Partnership, the BioFlorida regional chapter—those are all designed to pull companies that are in those sectors together and to try to build a cluster,” Jackson says. “We’re all looking for ways to expand not only the number of companies we have here that do this work, but also the size of the companies.”

Knab has identified 44 life science companies in the six-county area, and he hopes the chapter’s membership will double by 2011. A strong sign is that more than 100 people, including retired executives from companies such as Bristol-Myers Squibb and Johnson & Johnson, have attended BioFlorida’s four major events, which feature keynote speakers and allow companies to present themselves to the group. Knab hopes to create a founder’s council, composed of former executives living in the region.

“We want to get people together and provide a conduit for cross pollination of ideas,” he says. “We want to drive awareness. We have some amazing companies right here in our midst that are doing great things.”

Some of the little-known technology companies, including Pegasus Solutions, the world’s leading provider of reservation and other servers to hotel and travel distributors, are branches of large, global organizations. Pegasus, based in Dallas, has 18 offices in 11 countries. Its customers include about 95,000 properties worldwide and a majority of the world’s travel agencies.

The company’s Bonita Springs location has about 30 high-paid workers, says Aaron Shepherd, the company’s former CIO who recently was named a Pegasus Fellow to advise the company’s executive team on technology trends. Shepherd, who has lived in Naples since 1980 and sold GuestClick to Pegasus in 2007, also is working to develop local start-ups.

One of the challenges in getting more exposure of technology companies, which could help diversify the economy, is the nature of the business. “It is tough for business, especially start-ups when you’re already working 100 hours a week, to nurture those programs that would allow technology to get out there,” Shepherd says.

He and others recognize that more exposure would attract more talent, which is a continuing challenge. Some job candidates from outside the region are reluctant to move here; they’re concerned about the lack of other local employers in case the company hiring them fails or has layoffs, Paul says.

The partnership is working with FGCU to show the need for a software engineering degree; Jackson estimates there are several hundred IT-related companies in Southwest Florida, doing everything from website development to software code writing for clients around the world. Although FGCU offers a computer science degree, companies that hire IT people want them to have a software engineering degree, Jackson says. “If we’re able to accomplish that, we will be the only state university that offers a software engineering degree.”

“That right there says, ‘OK, FGCU is stepping up to the plate and creating something that technology companies can use,’” Hamilton says.