Killeen IT business expands, moves to new location
Posted On: Sunday, Apr. 20 2008 03:59 AM
By Don Bolding
Killeen Daily HeraldWith eight years of foreign and domestic information technology and community service behind it, Killeen's
Proactive Communications, Inc., will soon leave its rented facilities at 3106 S. W.S. Young Drive for its own building on six acres at Killeen Business/Industrial Park near Sallie Mae Servicing Corp.
The initial building will leave room for later expansion as needed, and the company can buy more land in the park if business keeps expanding.
"But right now, we're bursting at the seams," said chief operating officer Larry Hall. "We've grown by seven people to 37 in the past year, and revenue is up 27 percent."
And the Iraqi company that PCI essentially founded, weaned and continues to mentor is starting to seek civilian business of its own, in its own land. Founding the company with a motley group of people, many not even IT professionals, was one of PCI's greatest sources of pride last year.
In the meantime, the company has contracted with the Florida National Guard to develop a mobile Emergency Response Network in anticipation of hurricane season with the devastation of Hurricane Katrina in mind and is completing the last of three operations centers it has built in Iraq, moving ever northward in pursuit of Al-Qaida.
The company also donated Internet and bandwidth services to stream an eight-hour live music webcast during Fort Hood's recent "Salute to Heroes" event. Hall said the company recorded more than 7,000 viewers watching the event via SynchLive Friday evening.
The National Guard work is not the only defense against the furies of nature the company has undertaken, also completing a satellite-based communication system for the Franciscan Missionaries Our Lady of Health System in New Orleans.
"We were working with authorities in Louisiana in the aftermath of Katrina," Hall said. "Their worst problem was that they couldn't communicate fast enough. They didn't know what to send, where and when. We've tried to integrate systems and increase speed."
The National Guard work is supposed to be available to contiguous Gulf states that may be hit by hurricanes, he said. Together with Digital Consulting Services, PCI is developing fully meshed secure satellite capabilities that any agency concerned with damage control and relief could use. Hall had a truck at the office with a satellite receiver on the roof and 360-degree swivel cameras that can receive and send audio and video anywhere.
"So we have voice and video on the move," he said. "The intent is to link states together."
On the other side of the world, the Iraqi government just extended a one-year contract with the company to expand major network capability. The company is training 80 engineers and technicians in Jordan.
The company built an operations center in Diyalah province in Iraq's west in November 2007 and another in Samarah province to the north in February 2008. A third, in Ninewa, still farther to the north, is to be completed by the end of the month.
The company hopes to finish the deal on the industrial park property in about a month and break ground on the new building shortly thereafter. In the meantime, it's had to lease 6,000 square feet of space on DuBrock Drive, two miles from the current offices, for a logistics integration facility.
"We're going great guns," Hall said. "And most of us are Texans here, and we consider support to the community part of our service. We hope we all grow together."
Contact Don Bolding at
dbolding@kdhnews.com or call (254) 501-7557