Best Companies to Work for in Colorado ’09

Page 9

Small

Best Company winner
Infinity Systems Engineering
www.infinity.aero

Andy Wilfong, president of Infinity Systems Engineering, enjoys a massage by Alisa Giroir, LMT of Colorado Springs-based Intuitive Touch Massage Therapy. Infinity pays for personal massages every Monday, for all employees.

During an era of economic uncertainty, a company willing to carry some of its employees until the workload resumes brings new meaning to “best practice.”

“Right now, we have about six engineers on overhead for months,” says CEO Andy Wilfong, who founded Infinity Systems Engineering in 1996. “Most companies would let them go in two weeks to a month. But we’re keeping them on board four to five months because we have a huge contract award that is going to be announced hopefully in the first week of this October.”

The Colorado Springs engineering and information technology company – which also ranked No. 1 in the small-company category in last year’s Best Companies competition — works on satellite programs, serving such defense industry clients as Raytheon, Boeing, Northrop Grumman and Lockheed Martin. It recently added work with the Army to its extensive track record on Air Force contracts.

Its workers, who number 62 in Colorado, are used to logging long hours, but the company has strived since its inception to keep them happy, taking the entire team and their significant others on annual trips to such exotic locales as the Bahamas, Cancun and Mexico. The company is planning a trip to London in 2011 to celebrate its 15th anniversary, Wilfong said.

Infinity’s wellness program includes company-sponsored sporting events such as softball, volleyball, golf and tennis for workers and their families. This year, the company began bringing in a massage therapist once a week to help workers cope with the strain of working in front of computer screens for long stretches.

“I just thought it would be a great idea to hopefully minimize our medical costs but just as importantly keep employees feeling fresh and, from a muscle perspective, feeling good about themselves,” Wilfong said.

The company, which brought in more than $11.5 million in revenue last year, boasts a 98 percent retention rate and a 90 percent recruitment rate. In short, it’s looking for workers who want to stay with the company until they retire. Infinity’s managers accomplish that by working with employees to make sure they’re content with their jobs, Wilfong said. That can mean being flexible enough to let a worker relocate but remain employed with the company. A 12-year-employee recently moved to Boston.

“A lot of companies figure, if someone leaves we’ll just hire someone else,’’ he said. “I try to view it as a family. When you’ve been with a company for seven years, why not try to make it seven more?”

Infinity pays full medical, dental and disability coverage completely covered by the company and kicks in 10 percent to a 401(k) plan for all employees — who are immediately vested — regardless whether they make contributions themselves.

“We do things to try to keep them happy financially, which is stay very efficient as a company, which allows us to utilize what we bill our customers and give it back to the employees in terms of these awesome benefits,” Wilfong says. “You can have a goal for awesome benefits, but if it ends up costing too much to your customers, you’re not going to be able to implement it.”

2008 rank: No. 1
— Mike Cote

Best Company winner
ReadyTalk
www.readytalk.com

Dan King, CEO of ReadyTalk, shows off their great work environment. Amanda DiPlacido enjoys her work with her dog, Dieter, by her side.

Volunteerism and philanthropy have long been ingrained in the culture of Denver-based ReadyTalk, a provider of audio- and Web-conferencing services. And it’s become even more meaningful with the company’s continued success.

“As ReadyTalk becomes a more and more a successful company, it’s both an opportunity and obligation to contribute to the community in which we all work,” CEO Dan King says. “Healthy companies are the ones that can really impact philanthropic activities, and we’re very much a healthy company.”
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Workers at ReadyTalk can devote up to 20 hours a year on company time to volunteer work. The company also will match charitable contributions up to $500 per employee per year and contributes cash and services each quarter to nonprofits.

The economic downturn has meant increased demand for ReadyTalk’s services, King says. The company added 30 employees last year and is on track to exceed that number this year, with 20 new hires as of early July.

“In a poor economy people look for cost-effective tools that are also very productive, and Web conferencing and audio conferencing both foot that bill,” says King, who co-founded the company in 2000. “We also see companies doing webinars more and more as part of their marketing initiatives. And we have a great platform for customers who are doing those types of events.”

Although benefits are generous – ReadyTalk pays 100 percent of medical coverage for employees and their families — King attributes ReadyTalk’s reputation as a great place to work to the company’s culture, which aims to draw on the strengths and passions of employees.

“For me, it makes all the sense in the world that engaged employees are the ones who are going to deliver outstanding customer experiences both through the products that we build and support and the customer service that we provide,” King says. “We’ve always organized our thinking about our business just to make sure we’ve created an environment where we have highly engaged employees.”

Visit ReadyTalk’s Lower Downtown offices and expect to see 15 to 20 bikes parked inside the lobby.

“ReadyTalk tends to be on the younger side,” says King, who bikes from Boulder occasionally. “We have a pretty environmentally minded group of people who work here.”

2008 rank: No. 10
— Mike Cote

Best Company winner
IP5280 Communications
www.ip5280.com

IP5280 illustrates telecommuting can happen from just about anywhere. In front, John Scarborough and Jeffrey Pearl, managing partners and co-founders, demonstrate a virtual office.

This month, employees of IP5280 along with family members and business partners will climb Gray’s Peak, spending a Friday scaling one of Colorado’s 14,000-foot-plus mountains.

The Englewood-based Internet phone company began the treks four years ago as a way to promote teambuilding and raise money for charity. This year, IP5280 hopes to raise $50,000 for The Children’s Hospital and the Kempe Foundation.

“There’s a real sense of adventure when you’re climbing. It’s a high-energy activity,” says Managing Partner John Scarborough. “There’s a lot of leadership that is involved. There’s an amazing sense of accomplishment when you reach the summit of a 14er.”

Scaling those heights is indicative of the culture the company promotes in the workplace, Scarborough says. You can see it every day at the company’s daily sales meetings at 7:30 a.m., he says.

“By 7 o’clock, the music is blaring in the conference room. The coffee is brewing. People are moving and shaking,” he says. “It creates a fun place, a fun team environment.”

The technology the company sells – voice over Internet protocol – makes it easy to allow flexibility in where, when and how employees work. Although IP5280 has a formal office environment, workers have the ability to work remotely as needed in a seamless manner.

“The technology of voice over IP enables them to take one of our IP phones and plug it into literally any broadband connection in the world, and it will act just as if it’s sitting right here on your desk,” Scarborough says. “We can have remote workers, virtual workers operating from their homes, and they are still only an extension dial away. They still feel as if they’re in the office next door.”

Scarborough says IP5280’s products can save businesses 20 percent to 30 percent over traditional phone systems, something the company’s sales reps can believe in. The company logged more than $4 million in revenue last year.

“In the tough economy we’re in, we’re selling a product that saves people money,” he says. “It’s fun to be able to go out there and talk to other small- and medium-sized businesses and show them how new technology can not only build more efficiencies in how their business operates but it can save them money, too.”

2008 rank: No. 9
— Mike Cote

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