DEMAND GENERATOR: Stephen Wright, Wright Technologies

When Wright Technologies received an emergency call from Physicians Surgical Care, the job at first looked like a short-term business proposition. The health-care management company's first solution provider walked off the job, and it was desperate for an IT expert that could set up its network of about a dozen computers and implement its specialized operational software. And Wright Technologies would have only five days to complete the project before the company opened its doors to employees waiting for their first day of training.

But Stephen Wright, president of the solution provider, took on the task to get his foot in the door. "I went up and worked all weekend to get the network in," he said.

Wright's successful handling of that project blossomed into a seven-year relationship during which the Houston-based solution provider became the de facto IT adviser not just for Physicians Surgical—which since has been sold by founders Robert and Ned Schwing—but also for the health-care entrepreneurs' new company, Pinnacle Healthcare.

When it was sold, Physicians Surgical was generating roughly $60 million from its network of specialty clinics and hospitals. The company produced about $5 million in revenue during its first year of operation, and its co-founder and CEO, Ned Schwing, said Houston-based Pinnacle is on track to hit about that same run rate this year.

Schwing said Wright's smooth handling of his early IT crisis made him willing to listen when the solution provider approached him afterward with some advice on how he could improve and extend his company's nascent technology infrastructure.

To understand the influence that Wright Technologies has on Schwing's IT strategy, consider that the solution provider has been chiefly responsible for developing and deploying the secure network infrastructure that runs at the individual clinics—first at Physicians Surgical and now at Pinnacle—and the VPNs that connect the facilities.

Today, Wright orchestrates technology-planning meetings, and he sat on the selection committee that chose and integrated the specialized software applications that handle operational tasks. Subsequently, Wright's company was responsible for managing those relationships at Physicians Surgical and today is doing so at Pinnacle.

Often, both Wright Technologies and its customer were learning about new technologies simultaneously. "We certainly could have gone out and found someone that had done it before," Schwing said. "But because they [Wright Technologies] were so responsive, they got the business."

Wright said his company over time designed a standard solution that it uses with the Schwings' clinics—including mail servers, firewall/VPNs, backup systems and network switches. To deploy the solution, Wright Technologies always ensures it has options when it comes to vendors.

"We are promoting what that product is going to offer a customer," he said. "They just happen to get whatever brand we feel is best."

Among the products he recommends are Check Point Software Technologies and MultiTech Systems VPNs and firewalls, Hewlett-Packard managed switches and printers, ViewSonic monitors, American Power Conversion UPSes and Unitrends backup appliances. "I'm pretty darn loyal to the people who treat us well," Wright said.

And so, apparently, are Wright Technologies' own customers.

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