Finish First

Wayne woman who is nearretirement age, dresses conservatively and speaks about the virtue of slow growth is not exactly what one might envision at the forefront of Indiana's software industry.

However, E. Joanne Renselle is changing the image of what it means to he a successful software entrepreneur.

"I've lived and breathed this company since it was started in my living room," Renselle says, recalling the early days when she gave up her job as an elementary school teacher and launched a new business with her former husband.

The year was 1978. Space Invaders was being introduced as the first video arcade game, the AMC Pacer was the latest in automotive technology and Bill Gates was exploring ways to write software for Radio Shack, Apple and Commodore computers.

Back in Fort Wayne, Renselle's home was being used by a handful of engineers to develop software for large defense contractors such as Magnavox and ITT, which had operations in northeast Indiana. Creating embedded software for military applications proved to be a solid business and it allowed the company, then named Software Consulting Specialists, to grow steadily over the next six years and move into its own office space.

However, the early success of the company was about to be tested. As the Cold War began to wind down in the late 1980s, much of the defense contract work that provided the company's revenue was cut drastically or eliminated completely. In addition, Renselle and her husband divorced in 1992, an experience that she describes as one of the most difficult challenges both professionally and personally.

While either event might have been enough to end the company, Renselle was determined not to let that happen. instead, she agreed to assume the role of CEO and promised the company's 25 employees that she would find ways to keep their jobs.

Renselle renamed the company Logikos, the feminine form of the Greek word for logic, or the science of reasoning. She sought more corporate work to offset the loss in military projects. Logikos adopted the slogan "Finish First" to describe the results of clients it assists in getting a technological innovation to market quickly. And Renselle pledged to recruit top engineers who would help the company grow.

Her efforts were successful.

Since Renselle took over, Logikos has grown to 70 employees, with offices in both Fort Wayne and Columbus, and has seen its annual revenues more than triple to $7 million. Last year, the Greater Fort Wayne Chamber of Commerce named Logikos its "2000 Small Business of the Year" and Renselle was recognized as an Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year winner in the Northern Indiana contest.

The company also created a new specialty group called Infotronics to meet the growing demand for information applications. The group's focus is taking existing technologies and applying them in new ways to offer information access through portable electronic devices. Its slogan:

"Knowledge. Anytime. Anywhere."

"Perseverance is absolutely important," Renselle says, crediting the company's success to a management approach that stresses longevity over fast growth.

"People often put all their focus on profits, but I have always focused on cash flow," she explains. Doing so allowed the private company to grow while avoiding the pitfalls of mergers and IPOs that claimed many other technology companies in the past five years.

Logikos is proud of its high percentage of technical staff and boasts that 90 percent of its employees are engineers. As the head of an employee-owned company, Renselle says her biggest challenges are recruiting and hiring the type of high-caliber individuals that her Current staff expects. To accomplish that, Logikos employs a fulltime recruiter, works with colleges in Indiana and Michigan and provides extensive training that allows employees to learn the latest information technology.

Renselle also places a high premium on building a network of area business associates that provide support for the company. "Have a banker as your best friend," she advises often other business leaders. "They know your business in good times and bad times."

However, the management of Logikos is not the only reason it has succeeded in making the transition from start-up software company to a long-term player in a very competitive industry.

Michael Fritsch, Logikos' vice president of business development, has been with the company since its early days. He says an important factor in the company's success has been a focus on specialized software that is designed by its engineers for specific clients, rather than for the general market.

Since Logikos has not developed any commercial software products that bear its name, there's no way to visit a computer store and buy Logikos software. However, that doesn't prevent the company's code from being used by millions of people every day.

"We've written a lot of software that goes into cars and trucks and earthmovers," Fritsch says, adding that Logikos software can also be found in everything from ATM-like machines to DVD players.

Typical Logikos software is the kind that operates deep inside systems where it controls the operations that most people never think about as they use the products and services that it makes possible.

For example, Logikos created the software that runs the OnStar system in more than 1.5 million vehicles representing 36 of 54 brands sold by General Motors. The OnStar system collects information from each vehicle and utilizes Global Positioning System (GPS) satellites and cellular technology to allow drivers to place calls to OnStar operators.

Although few drivers have heard of Logikos, it is the company's software embedded into the car's various systems that allows OnStar drivers to get immediate operator assistance for problems ranging from mechanical difficulties to navigation. The market for such computer-aided transportation has exploded in the past few years. While the OnStar system had only 1,000 subscribers at the end of 1997, it has tripled in the past year and is currently adding 5,000 subscribers per day.

For Logikos, the automotive market was a logical place to utilize its experience in military applications and its proximity to the research and manufacturing facilities of the nation's carmakers. Today the company continues to use its contacts in the automotive industry to land project work and works closely with OnStar to test and improve the way the its onboard system works.

Renselle says the OnStar software is just one example of the growing demand for "smart" systems that lead to interaction between people and software outside of the traditional computer environment where a user sits in front of a screen and types on a keyboard.

"Everyone wants their car, their home and everything else to become smarter," she says, adding that such new technology will play a key role in the company's future.

Indeed, Logikos is already taking the lead in this area with new technology being developed for a project dubbed the "Transparent Hospital" that may change the way medicine is practiced around the world.

A collaborative effort where Logikos is joining with other Indiana companies including Hill-Rom, Adaptive Microwave, Vigilance Medical Technologies and Indiana University-Purdue University Fort Wayne, the transparent hospital is a visionary operation that removes the traditional physical boundaries of health-care facilities.

The heart of the project is software that connects hospital systems so that vital information about a patient to be accessed by health-care professionals, regardless of where they are located. For example, doctors and nurses treating a patient with IV medications could have the dosage and monitoring of vital signs available in real time from a wireless monitoring system that connects the patient's hospital bed to handheld computers. Any changes in a patient's condition would them be immediately available.

"By developing an information infrastructure that allows all hospital devices and applications to communicate with each other, and by providing medical professionals the tools to access data from anywhere inside or outside the facility, we are removing obstacles that might have critically delayed patient services in the past," explains Fritsch.

He envisions a system that revolutionizes health care and allows the profession to take advantage of the best advances in communications technology. However, Fritsch admits the challenge is great because hospitals already have a large number of proprietary systems in place and often hesitate to replace them.

"For years and years, people have been trying to build this," Fritsch says, calling the transparent hospital concept the "Holy Grail" of software. And he believes the secret to success in this quest will be partnering with other Indiana companies such as Batesvillebased HillRom, which is already a leading manufacturer of hospital beds and equipment.

"What we have to do to make this become accepted is work with all the parties," Fritsch says, noting that the project is drawing from the expertise of various Indiana technology providers. As the project progresses, Logikos hopes to tap into talent at the IU School of Informatics and Carmel-based Thomson Consumer Electronics, which Fritsch says could provide mobile user-interface products.

The Transparent Hospital project has been awarded a 21st Century Research and Technology Fund award from the state of Indiana and its progress can be tracked on its Web site at www.transparenthospital.com.

Since collaboration has been a trademark of Logikos through the years, it should be no surprise that the company is also taking a leading role in developing the high-tech community in northeast Indiana. Fritsch was instrumental in forming the Northeast Indiana Technology Partnership to encourage cooperation between technology companies and to help Indiana become recognized as the Midwest's technology leader by 2005.

Fritsch notes that partnerships among technology companies are a different way of doing business than has been the case in the past.

"We've been around since 1978 and for a software company, that's a long time," he says. "Logikos has grown very slowly, but very surely over the years... and we've been company-centric for a long time."

But the rapid pace of research, development and implementation in the world of technology is changing the nature of the game, Fritsch says. Rather than looking at other Indiana companies as competitors, Logikos now views them as potential partners.

"The thing to be positioned for is change," he says, explaining that a network of companies with unique skills, resources and products is better positioned to succeed in tomorrow's marketplace than a single company trying to provide everything in-house.

To that end, Logikos is planning to relocate its Fort Wayne offices from the industrial park that it has called home to a new technology community called Greenwing, where it will be the first tenant in the fourth quarter of 2002. Located by Parkview North Hospital on 63 acres just east of interstate 69, the new technology and res arch center is expected to be a key part of the local economy. Fritsch says the move will give Logikos the room it needs to hire more people in the coming years and it will also be an important step in providing leadership for the area's technology companies.

"We are committed to helping the growth of technology in this area," he says. "By helping others succeed, we can foster a better economic climate for all."

While Logikos has built most of its success through a conservative approach of providing behind-the-scenes technology solutions for major clients in the military, automotive and healthcare industries, the company does encourage innovation and new product development from its engineers.

One such example that sounds more like the off-the-wall approaches of Internet start-ups is actually leading to a new product for the company. Logikos recently held a contest for its employees to see what sort of unusual software ideas they could come up with. One employee, who also serves with the Indiana National Guard, decided to write an application for Windows CE-based personal digital assistants that could be used to launch mortar shells.

Although the resulting software only won third place in the company contest, Logikos decided to see if there was any interest in such a product from the U.S. military. As it turned out, a similar handheld application for mortar telemetry had just failed testing and Logikos was able to provide its replacement. The Logikos software has already passed its first operations test and the company is currently in discussions to sell the program to the United States Marines.

It's providing solutions in that manner that makes Renselle proud of what she and her employees have accomplished since those early days in her living room. And now she is determined to reward the people who have helped the company grow and prosper.

Renselle has decided it's time for her to step down from leading Logikos and has made arrangements for its 26 shareholders to buy out her interest in the company over the next two years.

"I think one of the things that a CEO is responsible for is planning their own succession and having the sense to know when it's the right time to go," she says. In doing so, Renselle fulfilled a promise that she made upon becoming CEO that she would not sell the company to outsiders.

"I could have made oodles more money if I had sold to an outsider," Renselle says. "But that's not what it's all about."

Too often mergers and acquisitions are calculated by looking at investments strictly in terms of financials and not as to the impact they have on the people who are involved, she adds. That's why so many of the fastgrowth technology companies that have been created in recent years foundered when they were bought out by larger corporations.

"They lose their heart, their core competencies and their purpose," Renselle says, noting she doesn't want to see that happen to Logikos employees, many who have been with the company for five, 10 or 15 years.

However, Renselle doesn't expect to be inactive in her retirement. She recently joined the board of the Indiana Chamber of Commerce and has started public speaking on the role of women executives in the future of business.

"Having survived as an elementary school teacher and a high-tech executive, maybe I could launch a third career in motivational speaking," she says with a smile. The smart money isn't betting against it.