Forza among fastest-growing technology firms

By Hannah C. Glover, Record-Journal, Meriden, Conn., Tuesday, May 14 2002, top of Business Section

WALLINGFORD [Connecticut] –Joseph Pannone started Forza Technology Solutions from the garage of his father’s house after graduating from college in 1993. For seven months, he wrote software and built networks without ever receiving a check.

I made a lot of cold calls, and did. a lot of begging,” Pannone said with a laugh. And it worked.

By 1996, the company posted revenues of $167,000 and in August 2000, Pannone doubled his staff and his client base when Forza, which is Italian for “force,” acquired North Haven based Bassett [Computer Services] Networking.

Now, with a staff of 15, the Yalesville company is the 11th fastest growing technology firm in Connecticut and among the top 500 fastest growing in the country, according to the Deloitte & Touche 2001 Technology survey.

In Connecticut, Forza competes with scores of other firms to rank among the top 50. Nationally, it competes with the other top 50s in 22 different regions throughout the U.S. and Canada. And while Forza has ranked among the lop 50 in the state since 1997, ibis is the first year that it has been on the national list. It ranks No. 418 in a list that includes companies such as VoiceStream Wireless — with $1.92 billion in revenues — and this year’s No. I fastest growing firm, e-Bay, which has gone from revenues of $372,000 in 1996 to a $431 million dollar enterprise, where even NASA shops for spare parts these days.

“It’s not the Fortune 500,” said John Difucci, who is a technology analyst with CIBC World Markets, based in New York, “but it means Deloitte considers them among the 500 most important.”

Unlike Fortune, which is an independent list that uses the overall market as a gauge, Difucci said lists produced by consulting firms such as Deloitte & Touche typically base their assessments on clients with whom they plan to partner, or companies whose products they intend to use. Still, Difucci said, “that’s not bad.” In an industry where half of the startups don’t make it through the first year, and half again disappear before they turn five, Forza has grown tenfold since 1996. Pannone first began experimenting with computers in junior high school.

“When it rained and I couldn’t play baseball or soccer, my friend and I worked on the computer.” Hours on this $500 Atari system seemed like moments, he said. By high school, he knew what he wanted to do. While his classmates at Lyman High School studied BASIC programming, a simplified computer language commonly taught in schools during the mid-80s, Pannone was teaching himself more complex languages such as C and C+[+] at home and building a library of programming textbooks.

His first program was a computer game in which players banged on the space bar to obliterate graphics of space ships that whizzed across the computer screen.

In 1.992, Pannone graduated from Southern Connecticut State University with a degree in computer science and began writing much more complicated programs.

Software development accounts for about half of Forza—Basset’ s business, Pannone said. Major projects have included work trac[k]ing the holograms on MasterCards. Forza tracks the numbers inscribed on the shiny metallic squares, managing the inventory and guarding against duplication and fraud. Commerce over the Internet has kept the account strong.

A project at Yale required developers to write a program that would help researchers monitor the effects of certain drugs on animals. Bach time the animal walked, researchers would lilt “a,” for example; “b” might signify an attempt to climb and “c” might tally the time spent scratching. “We had developers running and jumping all over the office,” Pannone said.

A touch-screen program helped one group of researchers measure the effects of dementia on elderly patients, while currently, developers are writing software to help measure attention deficit disorder among teen-agers.

Network consulting and support is another facet of Forza’s business. Forza provides companies with firewalls to protect against hackers and computer viruses.

“We chose them because they’re local,” said Manon Cox, the president of corporate development of Protein Sciences in Meriden, When the Research Parkway company eliminated its in-house network administrator, Forza helped whip the system into shape, Cox said.

The past year has been difficult for may technology firms, but Pannone said that he is determined to help his company continue to grow. “We don’t plan on stopping, and we’re always looking for new groups to acquire.” Pannone said.

“My philosophy is to always hire people who are smarter than me,” Pannone said. “So far”, he added with a laugh, “I’ve done a good job.”

If you would like more information about Forza Technology Solutions, please Contact Us.