IT junkie poised for growth.Dean Hayes chose to turn a negative experience of getting a pink slip into a positive one. It provided the fuel for the 33-year-old entrepreneur to become an IT go-getter. Together with his 40-ish business partner. Renault Franklin, they established Global RnD, a fast-moving Thunder Bay Thunder Bay, city (1991 pop. 113,946), SW Ont., Canada, on Thunder Bay inlet of Lake Superior. The city was created in 1970 by the amalgamation of the twin cities of Fort William and Port Arthur and two adjoining townships. Web site development and Internet marketing See Internet advertising. company. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Born out of the incubator program at the Northwestern Ontario Northwestern Ontario is the region within the Canadian province of Ontario which lies north and west of Lake Superior, and west of Hudson Bay and James Bay. It includes most of subarctic Ontario. Technology Centre (NOTC NOTC New Orleans Track Club (New Orleans, Louisiana) NOTC Northwestern Ontario Technology Centre NOTC Naval Officer Training Centre (Canada) NOTC New Old Time Chautauqua ) four years ago, the company prides itself as one of the region's fastest growing IT firms with a geographically wide-ranging and diverse client list now reaching about 400. In catering to small- to medium-sized businesses, the two-person company has built a reputation for professionalism and attention to detail, securing such clients as Northern Supplier, the NOTC, the Aboriginal Recruitment Co-ordination Office, 807 Northwest Network, Belluz Realty, the Tom Jones Corp. and the Thunder Bay Medical Centre. "We've surpassed what we expected in our initial business plan and our cash flow analysis by a lot." After graduating from Confederation College Confederation College is a provincially funded community college located in Thunder Bay, Ontario, Canada. It was established in 1967, and has area campuses in Dryden, ON, Fort Frances, ON, Geraldton, ON, Kenora, ON, Marathon, ON and Sioux Lookout, ON. as a computer programmer analyst A person who analyzes and designs information systems and designs and writes the application programs for the system. In theory, a programmer analyst is both systems analyst and applications programmer. In practice, the title is sometimes simply a reward to a programmer for tenure. in 1995, the Thunder Bay native worked as a systems administrator for Bay Net, the region's largest ISP (1) See in-system programmable. (2) (Internet Service Provider) An organization that provides access to the Internet. Connection to the user is provided via dial-up, ISDN, cable, DSL and T1/T3 lines. at the time, before going to work for a Web development startup company The creator of this article, or someone who has substantially contributed to it, may have a conflict of interest regarding its subject matter. It may require cleanup to comply with Wikipedia's content policies, particularly neutral point of view. . His introduction to the Web development business lasted about a year before they closed up shop in 2000, throwing five people, including his future partner, out of work. "It was the day we were supposed to get cheques. We got lay-off slips instead." So they decided to launch their own business. "We watched what was happening where we were working and figured we could manage it better." They turned to Development Thunder Bay for advice, and a self-employment program run at the time through Ernst & Young. In accumulating clients in Thunder Bay and spreading out into Dryden and Geraldton, the company has been networking with old acquaintances across North America and has landed many jobs through referrals, with customers as far away as Alberta, British Columbia, Minneapolis and California. It is a crowded IT field, but Hayes counts their successful formula as handling client requests promptly and offering some "value-added" service of going the extra mile for customers. Future plans include possibly setting up a satellite office in Western Canada where Hayes sees some definite growth areas in small- and medium-sized enterprises. While he has entertained thoughts of "making more money in bigger places," Hayes admits he would be missing out on a "superior" quality of life in Thunder Bay. "It's challenging (to run a business), but anything worth having is worth working for. My core competency is computers, and now I'm thrown into accounting, marketing and customer service. There are some hurdles to overcome, but it's worth it in the end." www.globalrnd.net By IAN ROSS Northern Ontario Business Northern Ontario Business is a Canadian magazine, which publishes monthly in Greater Sudbury, Ontario. The magazine covers business news and issues in Northern Ontario. |
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