Blog / Coming of Age – Reflections on TRINUS after 21 Years of IT Service
It’s hard to believe that TRINUS is celebrating 21 years of IT Service and Support to Alberta municipalities, as well as small & mid-size businesses. We marked the occasion with the official Grand Opening of our new expanded facilities in Stony Plain. Many of you have seen our storefront; the TRINUS Computer Centre in Golf Course Plaza. But not many have been into our Corporate facilities on the west side of the same complex. Apart from a brief stint as 3 home-offices and then a year or two in a shared office space in Edmonton, we’ve had the same home in Stony Plain; albeit it started a lot smaller – in 2002, we opened with a single 1800 sq. ft. bay. Our new expanded premises encompass over 8,000 sq. ft.
Our new facility has a dedicated Data Centre, complete with three equipment racks, dual-redundant air conditioners, backup power generation and dual independent Internet feeds, each capable of 1GB data transfer rates. We have work-space for 14 Technicians, plus Account Management, Marketing, Administration, meeting rooms, and Staff cafeteria. It’s a vast improvement over our previous offices.
But I also remember our first big job some 21 years ago. It was a simple ten-station, single-server network. But it was a huge leap of faith for our small fledgling IT company. We were long on can-do attitude, but short on actual Technical skill. We pulled-off an all-nighter to get the network running by the time the staff came in the next morning – and most of it worked. Thankfully, the manager was very understanding. We kept them as a Client for over a decade.
Over 21 years, we’ve tried just about every aspect of IT work: websites, software development, training, website hosting, Email, graphic design, digital marketing, gaming, custom computers, networking, cabling, and consulting. We’ve worked for national police agencies, banks, gold mines, insurance companies, and global manufacturers. We’ve worked on Top Secret and murder investigations. From Calmar to Cape Town; from High Prairie to Hong Kong, from Pincher Creek to Papua New Guinea, we’ve worked on just about every continent and in every corner of Alberta. But we’ve found our sweet-spot servicing municipalities, medical clinics and small business in our home province; it’s what we do best.
We started as three Partners; all working in the trenches. Today, we have 23 staff from all over the world, but all four present-day Partners continue to actively work in the business; absentee management is not our style.
In the early days, I remember a respected Business Development guru telling me “there was no future in small-network IT.” I think he might have been wrong. Of course, one would have to be blind not to recognize the changes in IT over the last 21 years. In the day, Google was unknown, there was no Social Media or Smartphones; and you carried a laptop with two hands. Monitors had TV display tubes in them and a 14-inch screen was the most common size. Windows NT networks and dial-up modems are today’s IT museum pieces.
Through it all, TRINUS has kept pace with the Technology innovations. Not a day goes by without some announcement heralding the Biggest, the Best, or the Fastest. For the most part, we ignore them, as it’s mostly irrelevant to our Clients.
Which brings me to our Clients. Most Business Marketing will contain some reference to Customer First, Client Focus, or Customer Loyalty – all implying that Customer Service is somehow a Marketing-only message. Of course, it’s not. At TRINUS, we’ve always been incredibly grateful for the support and loyalty that our Clients have shown us these past 21 years. Some have been with us from the very beginning; others are new to us.
One thing has never changed; we view our Clients’ trust in us to manage their IT systems and sensitive information as bordering on SACRED. Now more than ever, safeguarding IT systems is critical to the corporate health and well-being of our Clients; it’s serious work.
But, we’re not above having a bit of fun. TRINUS Olympics – featuring a bouncy castle obstacle course, Friday night soccer games, Go-Kart racing, and TEAM-driven Lego building competition, all help us to laugh and enjoy each other’s company. And we also like to lend a helping hand in the community: Make-a-Wish and Ronald McDonald House being two of our favourite causes.
I’ll reserve my final thought for our Staff. We’re certainly proud of our new facility and how it will help us better serve our Clients. But it’s just so many empty chairs without people to sit in them. We’re most proud of our Staff and the families that stand behind them. Through late nights, frustrating Technical problems, and lost product shipments, they exhibit a single-minded dedication to providing first-class Client Service. They truly embody what TRINUS is all about.
I don’t know what the next 21 years at TRINUS will bring, or who will be leading the charge. If it’s half as rewarding as the first 21 years, they’ll be in for a very good ride. Hopefully, you’ll be there with us.
And now, for the ribbon-cutting – SNIP!
Thanks!
Dave White
TRINUS
stress-free IT
trinustech.com
