Bill Stealey, who has always insisted on being called “Wild Bill” from his Air Force fighter-pilot days, has seen the best—and worst—of high-tech times. And he’s back looking to score once more.
Stealey, the founder of computer games company Interactive Magic, took the company public but ended up being ousted last year. He has bounced back to become chairman of ITParade , a rapidly growing business-to-business firm in Research Triangle Park (www.itparade.com).
“He’s been there. He’s done this,” said ITParade founder Robert Davie Jr., a former IBM employee, when asked why he brought in Stealey to help get more funding. “He’s our cheerleader.”
Stealey, as charismatic as ever, is helping Davie and ITParade in its search for more venture capital funding. And he was quick to leap when Davie asked him to jump onboard.
“I talked with Bill, and he says, ‘Whoa!’” Davie said, recalling their first conversation.
The two men met through their sons, who work together in the Park. Stealey, who took time off after the Interactive Magic ouster to work on his golf game, had vowed to help grow another company. When he studied ITParade’s business plan, he was ready to park the golf cart.
“Sounds like I had a plan,” Stealey said of his return to business. “I had nothing else to do,” he quipped. But that comment doesn’t reflect his seriousness about the opportunity he sees in ITParade, which despite its young age (three years) and small size (10 employees) has been tracked by prestigious research firm Forrester and recently was written up by the J.C. Bradford & Co. analysis division in a book on vertical “emarkets.”
ITParade’s primary niche is to broker sales and auctions of used equipment by large corporations such as AT&T, Sun, Lucent and IBM to smaller firms which remanufacture the equipment and then resell it to other companies. ITParade gets a fee from every successful sale. Davie, who has lived in the Triangle since 993, started the company three years ago in his home with one other employee. Among Stealey’s first jobs was to help find the company more space—and he did, at the old Interactive Magic headquarters. (The company is now called IENetwork.)
ITParade booked $950,000 in revenue in 999, according to Davie, and it represents one of the niche firms that Wall Street has identified as a possible big player. ITParade also generates revenues from site subscription sales and advertising.
Davie has positioned his company to meet the needs of large companies looking to move equipment but don’t want to deal with the estimated 2500 used equipment dealers. And J.C. Bradford praised what ITParade offers: efficiency. “The market for used computer equipment is poorly defined, inefficient and dominated by dealers,” the Bradford report says. “The lack of a central marketplace generates high search costs for buyers and sellers while providing little market transparency.”
Stealey is changing a bit with the times in his new job. It was very strange to see him at a recent business conference sans his Air Force flight suit, his standard dress at Interactive Magic. Another change, too, can be seen on his business cards, which read: “J.W. ‘Bill’ Stealey” (not “Wild Bill”).
Positive growth
STATS BEAR OUT N.C.'S HIGH-TECH PREEMINENCE
Need further proof that North Carolina is slowly transforming itself into a high-tech hotbed? The new Cyberstates report, published by the widely respected American Electronics Association in conjunction with NASDAQ, provides plenty of ammunition.
High-tech jobs in the state numbered 126,000 through 998, placing the new economy sector second in private sector employment behind textiles and apparel (25,000). According to various statistics compiled by the AEA, high-tech jobs have soared 33 percent, or 31,100, in the state in five years.
Much of that growth has taken place in the high-tech manufacturing sector, which makes up 58,806 of those jobs. That’s good for ninth nationally. (California is No. at 452,780.)
The number of related technology firms is now above 4000. And high-tech exports have jumped to $3.6 billion, or 24 percent of the state’s export total. That 999 total was good for th in national rankings. (California led at nearly $53 billion.)
Leading the growth surge is software development and services, which has more than doubled in jobs to 5,400 from 7200. Communication services employment has jumped 6000 to 30,200; but computer and office equipment manufacturing is up only slightly to 20,500. Still, the latter figure is good for 6th nationally. The state also is 5th nationally with 5,2 jobs specifically associated with communications equipment manufacturing.
But North Carolina, the country’s 0th largest in population, still has room to grow. It ranks 4th in high-tech employment, a consistent figure since 993, and the average high-tech wage of $49,443 ranks only 23rd nationally.
However, the high-tech workers are still much better off than average private-sector wage earners. They come in at $27,953 per year.
Cyberstates also reports that North Carolina ranks 2th in venture capital investments for 999 and only 21st in research-and-development per capita as of 997.
By the way, Georgia’s high-tech job growth is up 48 percent since 993, to 42,648 jobs. Virginia’s high-tech jobs are up 42 percent, to 69,653. But South Carolina’s are up a meager 4 percent, to 3,656.
Nationally, Cyberstates reports that high-tech job growth from 993–999 is up 32 percent, or nearly 5 million. And high-tech wages totaled better than $279 billion through 998, an increase of a staggering 53 percent over 993 when adjusted for inflation.
Individual high-tech salaries soared 20 percent in that same time period, to an average of better than $57,000.
For a copy of the new Cyberstates report, contact the AEA at www.aeanet.org.
PC humor
ANCHORS AWEIGH FOR ANTIQUES TERMINALS
Dick Daugherty, former head of IBM in North Carolina and now a top executive at N.C. State’s Centennial Campus, knows first-hand how rapidly computers are evolving. He recently bought a new PC (IBM, of course) and asked a friend what he should do with his “old” one of some four years in age.
“Got a boat?” the friend replied. Yes, Daugherty said. “Use it as an anchor!” the friend proclaimed.
Daugherty laughed then said, “Now wait a minute! I had a hand in manufacturing those!”
The bone reader
UNC PROF STUDIES NATIVE AMERICANS
Clark Spencer Larsen, an anthropology professor at UNC-CH and President of the American Association of Physical Anthropologists, has a fascinating story about the impact of Europeans on Native Americans in the June issue of Scientific American. (The story can be found online at www.sciam.com).
Larsen, relying on what he calls bioarchaeology, discusses in great and fascinating detail how the health of Native Americans declined post-Christopher Columbus, but not entirely due to new diseases introduced by Europeans. Altered diet and living conditions also contributed to the decimation, says Larsen, who studied remains of Indians who lived near missions in “La Florida” (covering Florida and coastal Georgia) and found “telltale signs of disease and malnutrition.”
Writes Larsen: “The bone chemistry findings thus show that the Indians’ diet changed after the Europeans came—but not for the better.”