More News

Brianna Bowling grew up in La Plata without electricity or running water. Her family used kerosene lanterns to read by and gathered around the radio to listen to old-time shows.

Today, Bowling heads Zekiah Technologies, a La Plata software development and integration company that made Inc. magazine's annual list of the 5,000 fastest-growing privately owned companies in the nation this year. The business, which specializes in geospatial analysis and information management, had revenue of $2.8 million in 2007, up from $2.0 million in 2004. Bowling expects to reach $3.5 million in sales this year.

This month, Bowling was named Soar Like an Eagle Entrepreneur of the Month by the Charles County commissioners.

She notes the irony in leading a high-tech company after her relatively low-tech upbringing. "It just proves that it's not the material things that make a person, but the intangibles they are given in life," Bowling said. "My parents taught me ethics, the desire to work hard and that I could do whatever I set my mind to — truly wonderful gifts to enter the world."

Entrepreneurs such as Bowling are a credit to the county, County Commissioner President Wayne Cooper said in a statement. "Her company and her success as a business owner show the way for other Charles County entrepreneurs and young people to follow," he said.

After graduating from La Plata High School, she earned an English literature degree from Goucher College in Baltimore. "Goucher's strong liberal arts curriculum prepared me well for the business world," Bowling said. "It gave me the tools I needed to communicate, lead and research what I didn't know."

In 1997, she was a stay-at-home mom, starting to dabble in HTML. Bowling joined a then-virtual group called DCWebwomen and met another stay-at-home mom from the area with two small children.

"We lived on a farm, so I invited the woman down to Charles County to see what farm life was like," Bowling said. "They took a tour of the farm, petted the bunnies, gathered some eggs, saw some cows and had some grilled cheese for lunch." About a year later, her contact called and said she was now working for a government contractor and wondered if Bowling would be interested in a contract supporting the U.S. Department of Justice.

"That's the contract that got Zekiah started," Bowling said. "I never thought that a grilled-cheese lunch with a fellow stay-at-home mom would lead to our company, but it did. This is a story I tell each of our new employees because I want them to remember that new business comes from many sources, so it's important to treat each person with respect and to let them know your goals, because you don't know if they will be the source of your next success."

Additional work started coming in, including creating custom Internet sites and doing HTML work for groups such as the AFL-CIO. Bowling turned to her sister Fawn for help. Her husband, Dan, who was then working for Booz Allen Hamilton, quit his job on Christmas Eve in 1999 to work for Zekiah. "It was a tight Christmas that year," Bowling said.

The company opened a small office in Dahlgren, Va., in 2002, but retained administrative functions in Bowling's home until 2005, when it moved into an office in La Plata. The growth continued to some 30 employees today, with a larger technical office in Dahlgren and another office in Colorado Springs, Colo.

Bowling credited the technical success of Zekiah to her husband and two other company partners. Dan Bowling's contacts in his prior work led to the company's first military contract, she said.

The company provides employees with fully paid health insurance and merit bonuses. "We treat them like they are our family," Bowling said. "We truly care about what makes them tick as an individual and try to match what fires them up in the morning with the work they are assigned. Because our employees like what they are doing, our client's projects are a success."

Bowling recently was the featured speaker at a College of Southern Maryland program to encourage high school girls to pursue careers in math and science.

The Bowlings live in Dentsville with their three children, Forrest, 14, Andrew, 12, and Georgia, 7. In her spare time, Bowling coaches youth soccer, rides horses and volunteers for Charles County 4-H and other organizations.