Lincoln’s Lighthouse reaches $105M revenue mark

Thomas C. Mrva didn’t become a New England Patriots fan until the 2001 season. An old New York Giants fan, the 46-year-old president and CEO of Lighthouse Computer Services watched the Patriots – long considered down and out – march to a Super Bowl victory that year.

The team’s Cinderella season could be used as an analogy for Mrva’s success, which took the IT solutions company from annual revenue of $141,000 in 1995 to $27.7 million in 2000.

But perhaps what makes the company most like the team is the fact that it has repeated its success, more than doubling its expected sales this year alone.

According to Mrva, Lincoln-based Lighthouse will again post a large increase in revenue; going from last year’s $52 million to $105 million for 2005.

For Mrva, who started the company with $5,000 in savings in 1995 after leaving IBM, the success has come rapidly. In 2000, the company topped the New England Technology “Fast 50,” a list that tracks how rapidly tech companies in the region grow.

At the time, Lighthouse was the only Rhode Island company on the list.

But the company is being rewarded not only for its ability to turn a profit. Lighthouse recently announced that it is one of six recipients of the “VAR (Value Added Reseller) of the Year,” awarded by VARBusiness magazine for companies that topped the sales excellence/demand generation category.

Mrva credits much of his success to his ability to staff Lighthouse with strong, knowledgeable employees. Reluctant to hire anybody directly out of college, Mrva said he looks for people who have at least 15 years’ experience in the IT field.

“We have a lot of people with gray hair, which is unusual in an IT company,” said Lighthouse Vice President David Sylvestre.

Mrva’s philosophy behind his hiring: Get people who know their field and have passion for what they do. He said that in many cases fresh-out-of-college workers know little about what they want out of their career other than making a lot of money.

He treats his employees well, he said, but he also demands a lot of them.

When interviewing people, Mrva said he asks them what they would read if they were on a hammock on vacation. Jokingly, he said he’s not going to hire the person who reads Family Circus.

However, there is some truth to that.

“Some people read newspapers for relaxation, some people read their trade magazines for enjoyment,” Mrva said.

It’s that kind of staff that has allowed Mrva to make strides in the IT field.

According to him, the best way to earn customers’ trust is show them the work you are capable of. That means taking on their problems, like an intermittently failing backup issue, to show clients Lighthouse’s work.

“We would solve it in typically an hour or two,” Mrva said. “And the nice thing about it is everybody would know about it. And everyone would know about Lighthouse solving it. To me, that was the best way to go about selling yourself.”

Caring for customers, much like employees, is another key to Lighthouse’s success, Mrva said.

While his customers include large corporations like MetLife and State Street, smaller and mid-tier companies also are treated with respect.

Many IT solutions company are “selling customers a business problem rather than a solution” by trying to pitch particular products rather than trying to meet their needs.

“You’re not on their radar screen if you’re just trying to sell them a product,” Mrva said. “What you’re doing [in that case] is really increasing their expenses.”

In terms of vision, Mrva said his strength in the field has been his ability to think ahead to things that will affect companies in the future.

He said the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, a compliance bill passed in the wake of the collapse of Enron, has been an issue to his publicly held customers. Because the act has placed emphasis on server security, it ushered in a new era of IT work, he said.

“A lot of people thought this was an accounting, lawyer-type [bill],” Mrva said. “From the get-go, I knew it wasn’t. It involved the CPAs and the legal community, but it also involved, legally, the people involved in IT. And we got involved earlier on.”

Sarbanes-Oxley caused Lighthouse to cater services around helping customers comply.

Despite the vast success, Mrva said he plans to keep his company in Lincoln.

With a collection of Patriots memorabilia from their first Super Bowl victory that likely rivals Gillette Stadium, he said his company is New England-based and that Lincoln is the perfect location to all of the region’s major cities.

“People should be screaming about Lincoln,” Mrva said.