How do you manage growth for your organization?

Through the COVID pandemic, we grew SSP Innovations significantly both organically and through adding another line of business via acquisition. Managing this growth has been challenging but we were successful in growing the company by growing and investing in our talented leadership team. The core utility business grew by having record sales years in spite of the pandemic which resulted in the company having an all time high backlog of work. Operationally we have had to scale the business through reorganizing our product and implementation teams to better allow the utility business to scale up to meet the market demand. On the telecom side, we closed the acquisition of 3-GIS in December 2020 bringing over 130 new employees and an entire new product line under the SSP brand. This new product line is complementary to our utility products and addresses a completely separate customer base of private telecom customers. We made the decision to run these two businesses as separate lines of business within SSP and focused 2021 on integrating the supporting functions such as core leadership, finance, HR, and marketing. As we entered 2022, we continued to look to leverage synergies between the utility and telecom LOBs while ensuring each is focused on addressing their customer segments. Now in 2023 we are finally working toward fully integrating the two lines of businesses into the single company of SSP. We will still manage the individual product brands very intentionally but our company will now “run as one” which is campaign that was introduced to all employees this year.

What are some core values that you have instilled in SSP Innovations?

The biggest corporate values we support are honesty, integrity and transparency. These are all foundational tenets of a concept we embrace called ownership thinking. This entails working to ensure that all employees in your organization are encouraged and empowered to think like owners. This certainly becomes harder the larger you get but it is an absolutely valiant effort for employee engagement. Our goal with honesty and transparency is to try to cut through the red tape of politics within the company to encourage open communication from the top down. This includes holding regular town hall meetings where employees can engage leadership in literally any conversation or question they may have. We attempt to provide direct and informative answers while knowing that significant change within a large company takes time and commitment from many departments/groups. We also openly share our financial targets and stretch goals for the company and then provide regular/monthly information to the employees showing them how we performed against the goals while addressing any corrective action we need to take. This is all in an effort to allow employees to both celebrate the corporate wins and share in the struggles. When embraced correctly it results in employees feeling like they are part of something more than just a job. This engagement and connection has been very hard to maintain during COVID but we hope to see a resurgence as we come out of the pandemic.

What services does SSP Innovations offer and how do you stay relevant in your field?

At SSP we are focused on being the most knowledgeable implementer of the technology available today while also focusing on investing into new technology to lead the industry via R&D around the tech that will continue to transform the industry in the coming decade. Our particular industries (utility and telecom) are underway with a major evolution of the underlying geospatial technology that we implement. The latest partner tech foundation, the Esri “utility network” is just beginning to mature and SSP has been instrumental to bringing this technology to fruition within our industry. Our partner. Esri, is organized to rely on implementation and product extension partners that are specific to the end industries. SSP’s goal has been to lead the way with the new technology by both providing industry leading software product extensions and by acting as the go-to system integrator for the full stack of software. This has been our core business for years. Our vision for the next 5 years is to continue our leadership and expansion within this core business as we believe it will carry the company through 2030. However, we also recognized we needed to pivot at the same time with R&D investment into new technologies that will allow SSP to continue to be viewed as a leader by continually looking ahead of what our customers need to do business. A key example is our investment into our latest product, SSP Vision, over the last 2+ years. This is a transformational product that utilizes computer vision, machine learning, and augmented reality to change the way that customers capture network data in the field. While this is a great example, we need to continue to always look at new tech that will better serve our customer’s business needs while utilizing their longstanding and significant investment into their GIS.

What kind of legacy do you hope to leave?

I hope the legacy I leave is that of a passionate technologist who built a great company that cared about its people.

My hope is that I will also be remembered as an entrepreneur that was very much in touch with the technology while having a keen focus on the people side of the business. SSP has foundationally been a technology leader since they day we started. We focus on being the best technologists in our sector while being able to uniquely tie technology solutions to our customer’s business challenges. Technology has the ability to transform business, workflows, and the people who interact with them but only if the technology addresses true business challenges while embracing the end users who interact with the technology. Far too often, software implementers focus solely on the underlying tech while forgetting the people. I believe SSP has succeeded in this area! Further, when people remember SSP, I hope that they remember that we cared about our employees, our customers and our partners. We built a company that people WANTED to be part of and that customers and partners WANTED to work with. It is absolutely true that the culture of a 300 person company is very different than a 30 person company but both can be good for the people involved. I think we are far from perfect as we continue to grow but our heart has always been in the right place and our people centered goals show that. In summary, I hope the legacy I leave is that of a passionate technologist who built a great company that cared about its people.

What advice can you give the next generation of Titans?

The next generation of Titans should continue to lead strongly while relying on mentorship and group support which is key to the Titan CEO organization. I have always had mentors in my business career and specifically while growing SSP from my basement to the large company it is today. And that’s often my biggest piece of advice to other founders and leaders. Find smart people who have done this before and embrace their guidance. Don’t be afraid to share your worries, your fears, and your aspirations with them. The support I’ve received from my mentors over the years has literally made the difference between closing the doors vs. making the next massive leap forward in my business. Being a leader is tough. The struggle is real. And a mentor can align with you to help ensure you never give up. Titan CEO specifically takes mentorship to new heights by utilizing a facilitated peer-based group of other similar leaders across a wide breadth of industries. While peer mentoring is distinctly different than a one on one coach, it is powerful in that it can bring a multitude of valuable ideas that can provide insights that may otherwise be completely hidden. Regardless of whether future Titans engage with Titan CEO or another similar group, finding true mentorship and peer groups should absolutely be a focus of their professional growth and in growing their businesses.