If you’re already one of the hundreds of small to medium-sized businesses across nine States who rests easy knowing that your IT department is in the hands of St. Louis-based Forward Slash Technology then you won’t at all be surprised by what company president Monte Hickey told Spotlight on Business in early July: “We have a very aggressive growth strategy over the next 24 months,” he said with unwavering determination and enthusiasm in his voice. “We’ve really built-up our central infrastructure over these last five years with our local and regional efforts and it’s time to take our product line national. Our clients are so well looked after and a lot of them are like friends and they’re encouraging us to go for it.” Hickey’s resolve rests on two factors: he knows Forward Slash is “a better investment” and he and his managing partner Matt Blank recently brought in IT specialist and boss man extraordinaire Jerry Driskill to fill the role of CEO. “Jerry’s sitting at my old desk now,” Monte continued. “He’s going to run the day- to-day around here moving forward while Matt and I will continue to build us out regionally and nationally. We have something here that is instantly expandable; we can expand right now by 10 by just adding people to our new help desk. The infrastructure is all there.” The ever- growing infrastructure he’s referring to has already made it possible for small and medium- sized businesses throughout the Midwest and beyond to outsource their IT and benefit from the same supports and services and performance levels that corporate power players take for granted. Monte, Matt, and Jerry spoke with me by way of conference call from their St. Louis headquarters.
SPOTLIGHT ON BUSINESS MAGAZINE • DECEMBER 2018 112
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