Brubaker re-enters services market

Paul Brubaker has started a company to help federal agencies figure out how to get the best returns on commercial technology already installed in their offices.

His two-month-old company, Procentrix, is neither a value-added reseller nor a traditional consulting firm seeking to sell new information technology systems to government agencies, said Brubaker, who left SI International earlier this year.

Procentrix, based in Reston, Va., has a goal to help agencies control their management processes and take full advantage of the software they’ve already licensed.

“We want to create a framework for agencies to achieve measurable performance improvements quickly,” said Brubaker, Procentrix’s co-founder and chief executive officer. “We’ll maximize existing systems, most of which are Microsoft,” he said.

Mike Hughes, Procentrix president and co-founder, said he believes most agencies are not taking full advantage of what their Microsoft systems have to offer.

Hughes said Procentrix has been involved in the development of Microsoft’s next-generation operating system, and will be able to help agencies transition to the Office 2007 platform.

Company officials say they plan to offer functional consulting services, providing clients with a mix of subject expertise—everything from the intricacies of government regulations to best practices and standards.

The company will also offer technical consulting services and commercial software support, but has no plans to sell software.

Brubaker, who has worked as a consultant and government official, said he expected about 25 percent of the government’s IT supervisory staff to retire within the next year or two. The need for new expertise offers an excellent opportunity for his company to sign up federal clients, he said.

With one client, which he declined to name, already onboard, Brubaker said the four-person company is in education mode now. The company’s expansion mode will come later, he said. “We’re spending half our time evangelizing and half our time looking for potential employees.”