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New headquarters provide quiet creative space for Complete Technology Solutions

 
Steve Blakey, a software support specialist, works in the new office space of Complete Technology Solutions on Balm Street near Weeki Wachee. The company, which got its start in Hernando in 1997, provides basic computer help desk support.
Steve Blakey, a software support specialist, works in the new office space of Complete Technology Solutions on Balm Street near Weeki Wachee. The company, which got its start in Hernando in 1997, provides basic computer help desk support.
Published May 4, 2017

WEEKI WACHEE

Complete Technology Solutions has moved into large new avant-garde headquarters that owners Maurice and Tina Ryman say matches the size of their homegrown information technology service company.

The small firm, founded in 1997 by the Rymans, both natives of Hernando County, previously was based in a leased strip mall unit. The new free-standing 5,000-square-foot concrete, wood and glass structure — off U.S. 19 just south of Weeki Wachee — represents an investment of $650,000.

"It was nice to see our vision come to fruition," Tina Ryman said, with Maurice Ryman adding that the result took a year and a half from drawing board to occupancy last month.

Both stories behind the building and company are unique.

From a 31/2-acre tract of pine woods, the Rymans carved only a plot necessary for their structure. The felled trees they had milled into timbers and boards to raise the roof and make the interior doors and table-counter surfaces.

"It would have been a shame to waste them," Tina Ryman said of the mature longleaf and sand pines.

Inside CTS headquarters, the pines' rich yellow-orange-burnt-umber hues imbue warmth to what could be a chilly, sterile environment often associated with technology labs. Broad boards have been crafted into slab sliding doors, hung on barn hardware for rustic coziness.

Special deep glazing over a concrete floor yielded an upscale marble-like look.

"We wanted to get out of the strip mall environment," said Maurice Ryman, "to provide an environment more conducive to the development process, into a building that reflected our approach to what we do."

"We needed a quiet place to work," added Tina Ryman, who noted that the clamor through the wall of a next-door Asian take-out restaurant in the strip mall sometimes could stifle innovative and creative thought.

The woodsy outdoors, viewed from windows in every office, gives a plus to the new building's site while nearby Commercial Way makes it an easy find for visiting clients.

But most clients don't visit. Obviously, communication by computer is the norm, with customers ranging across Florida, even nationwide, where CTS products are applied to federal government work.

What CTS does is twofold: providing information technology services and developing software.

Maurice Ryman, 41, launched the company, providing computer support services for small businesses, for instance, connecting an office's multiple computers so they can "talk to each other," setting up servers and routers, developing dedicated websites and responding to calls such as, "Why isn't my computer working?"

Such services are directed to small businesses that cannot afford their own technology specialists on staff.

"They get more bang for their buck from us," Maurice Ryman said of these clients, a mix of attorneys, doctors, real estate agents, health care agencies, churches and small concerns with multiple offices.

Reaching further, the firm's trademark software product, known as ATLAS, is an industry darling for workforce development agencies, where data tracking and retrieval is a prime necessity.

The Automated Tracking, Linking, Archiving Solution program was created, with Maurice Ryman as architect, over nearly two years.

"He always was a nerdy geek," quipped Tina Ryman, 39. He grinned, accepting the comment as the compliment it was meant to be. (The couple, high school sweethearts, graduated from Central High School. She supported both of them financially, waiting tables and bartending, while Maurice Ryman nursed the firm to fruition.)

In layman's terms, ATLAS enables documentation for any entity involved with federal- or state-funded programs, which typically require a plethora of data and categorizing. Collating the same data by hand would consume oodles of time. Via computer, it's a whiz.

"(ATLAS) doesn't necessarily replace folks, but it does those processes so it frees people from paperwork and allows them to focus on face-to-face work," Maurice Ryman explained.

CareerSource, Florida's employment and workforce development service, is CTS's biggest customer, with 14 workforce boards serving 80 percent of Florida's populace utilizing the program.

CareerSource also is using ATLAS to provide online educational classes for clients in their homes. That use has prompted CTS to successfully market ATLAS to school districts and others.

"We're in the process of expanding ATLAS for other businesses," Maurice Ryman said. "We're thinking of working with clients that use government services."

Those working-thinking pursuits bring the conversation back to the nuts and bolts of CTS's new building.

Individual work stations are not cubicles but mini-offices with closing doors to create quiet space. The "nerdy geeks" — eight on site, another eight in the field — can sit or stand at their computers via lift-or-lower desktops. They also can carry their laptops to a spacious open area with a conference-size work table where they can create collectively.

Contact Beth Gray at graybethn@earthlink.net.