Founder of new IT company believes his timing is good

Rick Thomas sat in the Starbucks on Robb Drive for the better part of two hours one afternoon this winter, cataloging his fears after he lost his information technology job with a Reno company.

"I was scared," Thomas says. "I thought I was going to lose my house."

But as his fears subsided, the 40-year-old Reno resident decided to launch his own IT business, ProTechnical, in the midst of the worst economic downturn in more than 50 years.

The timing is better than it appears, he says.

Companies are trimming in-house IT staff, but still need someone to keep their networks running. That creates opportunity for outsourcing companies.

At the same time, Thomas says, big IT companies IBM, Cisco are more open to business partnerships with startups as distribution through other channels continues to slow.

And although ProTechnical is just wrapping up its first three months in business, Thomas says he's reaching his first goal winning a new client each week.

He's working his tail off to get there.

Thomas doesn't awaken with business-related nightmares at 3 a.m. He's usually still awake, as he works 18 or more hours a day to get ProTechnical off the ground.

During the day, he makes sales calls and handles IT assignments from his clients. At night, he handles paperwork, teaches himself sales and management skills from on-line courses and learns about new software and hardware. A course in QuickBooks consumed a couple of full days.

"I need more time," Thomas says. He works with a couple of subcontractors, and he's preparing very cautiously to bring on his first employee.

Like many entrepreneurs, Thomas is driven by a desire to be his own boss after years of working in IT departments in the public sector the Nevada Secretary of State, the University of Nevada, Reno as well as private companies such as Caesars Tahoe.

Co-workers in those jobs saw the makings of a successful entrepreneur.

"He was a team player, really positive, really well-spoken" says Andy Flagg, who worked with Thomas at UNR before Flagg launched Mountain Computers Inc. in Reno.

But there's also something in Thomas' genes.

Of all his male cousins, Thomas is the last to establish his own business. His father, uncles and grandfathers all were business owners.

And Thomas draws confidence from an unusual source courses in IT security he undertook through Capella University. Some of those classes required preparation of mock business plans, and Thomas says the studies prepared him well for the real world of business.

The long hours have yet another source: His desire to spend as many hours as possible with his four-year-old daughter, Victoria, on the days that he has custody.

"I'm doing it for her all for her," Thomas says. "She's a duplicate of me. She loves the computer. She's always tearing things apart and putting them back together."

Even while Thomas builds ProTechnical as a provider of services to companies with five to 50 computers, he keeps his eye on a larger goal creation of an educational organization in which IT professionals can share best practices.

That organization, he figures, will probably be thriving within five years, and he's already collecting names of skilled IT professionals nationwide whose expertise he'd like to tap.

But those plans are little more than a dream these days as Thomas focuses on carving out a place for ProTechnical in the IT marketplace in northern Nevada.

"There are opportunities," he says. "Huge opportunities."