Twelve years ago, Bruce Tucker envisioned owning and operating a barbecue restaurant in Frederick, calculating he would need about $10,000 for the venture.
After careful deliberation, he opted instead for something completely different: He pursued his interest in information technology and launched Patriot Technologies, a network securities company with major federal government and commercial clients that has seen steady growth.
With the company now boasting $70 million in annual revenue, more than 60 employees and a nearly ‘‘straight-up” growth curve, Tucker says he has no regrets pursuing IT over ribs and wings.
‘‘I’d much rather be eating burgers than flipping them,” said Tucker, Patriot’s president. Co-founder Steve Keefe is vice president.
A longtime growth leader in Frederick County, Patriot Technologies, now on Pegasus Court near the Westview Promenade, has rapidly fostered partnerships with other network security companies nationwide to offer more protections as the market race for technology advances leaves holes ripe for hackers.
Most recently, Patriot teamed with Veracode Inc. of Burlington, Mass., which strengthens Internet codes, and Secure Computing Corp. of San Jose, Calif., which is a gateway security company with 22,000 customers worldwide, to resell their products and services.
‘‘We’re bringing on some new technology partners because of the advancements happening in technology,” Tucker said. ‘‘We need to make sure we’re bringing the new technology to our customers. ... We try to use multiple technologies — that’s our big pitch — and that’s why we keep taking on new partnerships.”
In December, Patriot joined with Guidance Software’s Reseller Program to offer EnCase solutions, which allow businesses and government agencies to conduct digital investigations on large amounts of data. The new technology offers constant monitoring, alerts and real-time responses and allows organizations to search and collect electronic information across an entire network, including laptops and e-mail systems. The Discovery Suite technology option processes the data for lawyer review.
In April, Patriot partnered with Juniper Networks to expand product options for commercial and government customers to upgrade its securities technology by reselling Juniper’s technology.
Patriot offers consulting to help business owners identify vulnerabilities to viruses, spam, identity theft, network intrusion and other risks and develops tailored solutions. Its clients include the Department of Defense, National Institutes of Health, Army and Defense Logistics Agency.
Small and medium-size businesses that send e-mails and invoices through the same computers are becoming more vulnerable to security breaches, as hacking techniques become more sophisticated, according to the National Institute for Standards and Technology.
One system breach could cost a business its reputation and thousands in financial recovery costs, according to the institute’s Computer Security Division’s 2006 annual report. Most of the 20 million small and medium-size businesses nationwide have computer infrastructure that could be vulnerable to being hacked and used in a crime, including against the government, and ‘‘must address security requirements,” according to the report.
‘‘In the good old days, Web sites were pretty static. And you could just put up a firewall,” Tucker said. ‘‘Now, you have information that is being pushed down to users. That opens up a huge security hole. Now, you have to let remote users like contractors and customers in.”
Another player in the network security field, MRW Systems Inc. of Manchester, services businesses in Central Maryland with between five and 50 desktops, with roughly 50 percent of its customers nonprofits. Its president, Michael Wolinski, agrees that demand for Internet security has been steadily on the rise in recent years, particularly in companies whose employees can access the network remotely.
‘‘Major players in the securities industry are coming out with products to address diverse needs in one stop,” Wolinski said. ‘‘They’re looking for a single-source solution as opposed to a multi-source solution.”
Wolinski said hackers create a program that automatically searches for holes in networks that do not discriminate in business types. For most small and medium-size companies, those loopholes are top priority, he said. In contrast, for businesses that use e-commerce, hackers seeking credit information is the major concern.
‘People are very seriousabout security now’
Privately held Patriot Technologies moved in 2004 into its 20,000-square-foot facility on Pegasus Court. The building has roughly 6,000 square feet of assembly areas, 10,000 square feet of finished warehouse space and 4,000 square feet of testing space, with offices for its 64 employees.
In the first quarter of 2003, the company’s revenues ballooned to $8 million from $4 million in the prior-year quarter, after cyber attacks on networks and Web sites increased. Patriot now boasts upward of $70 million in annual revenues, according to Tucker, and has no signs of slowing. From 1999 to 2007, Patriot’s revenues grew 568 percent, he said.
The growth ‘‘really is the demand for information technology,” Tucker said. ‘‘Industries are facing increasing regulations and companies want to keep customer trust and confidence. People are very serious about security now.”
Frederick County ranks second in Maryland in the number of new information technology jobs created per capita from 2002 to 2005, according to the state’s Department of Labor, Licensing and Regulation.
