Recession barely slows Server Technology

Here's how you grow revenues at a double-digit pace for seven straight years, even in the middle of the worst recession in decades:

* Find yourself a niche in a sector that's growing at breathtaking rates worldwide.

* Think of yourself as a research-and-development company that stays close to its customers and tries to keep a step ahead of their needs for new technology.

* Carefully patent your technological innovations and aggressively defend your patents to keep your products from becoming commodities.

Easy enough, eh?

The formula works like a charm for Server Technology Inc., which employs 140 at its headquarters in Reno's South Meadows and another 40 or so in sales offices in Europe and Asia.

The privately held company makes and sells highly sophisticated power units that serve racks filled with computer servers at giant data centers the sorts of sprawling, server-filled data centers used by companies such as Yahoo, Goldman Sachs or General Electric.

While many look something like that power strip that's under your desk, Server Technology's products can be configured to provide remote management, collect data on electric consumption or energy efficiency or alert data-center managers to problems.

The space devoted to data centers is growing by 15 to 25 percent a year, says the investment banking firm Kaufman Bros., and a survey this year by San Francisco's Digital Realty Trust found four out of five data center owners plan expansion during the next year or two.

And every one of those expansion projects is a potential customer for Server Technology gear.

"The data center is the backbone of corporate America," says Carrel Ewing, who founded the company in Silicon Valley in 1984 and moved it to Reno in 2000.

The company's Reno-based engineering staff produces a steady parade of new or upgraded power distribution units and switches, and President Brandon Ewing the son of the company's founder says many of the new products are developed directly at the suggestion of customers.

Server Technology aggressively manages its intellectual property. It's nailed down about 30 patents on its products, and it defends them fiercely from interlopers.

Efforts to stay a step ahead of the fast-changing data-center industry have brought a couple of small missteps through the years, says Carrell Ewing.

But he's quick to add, "We've been right more times than we've been wrong."

Ewing was right in a big way, for example, when his company landed its first contract to develop a telephone-activated power switch in the early 1990s. Ewing, an ex-IBM staffer, had built his company's early successes on communications software, but he saw strong potential for telephone-activated switches as data centers began to proliferate.

He was right, too, when he decided to move Server Technology to Reno in 2000.

Facing a six-fold increase in the rent he was paying in Silicon Valley 2000 was near the top of the dotcom boom Ewing moved the company to the 56,000-square-foot office, manufacturing and distribution facility it owns in South Meadows.

"Moving to Reno was the best thing we've ever done," says Brandon Ewing, who says the company's growth accelerated after it made the move.

Boosting that growth trend was a workforce that so appreciates its working environment and benefits that employees twice have voted Server Technology to the list of best places to work in northern Nevada.

"It's a fun place to come to work every day," says Kay O'Brien director of human resources.

Server Technology owns three undeveloped acres next to its headquarters building, and the Ewings expect the company's sales growth will require more space within the next few years.

While the worldwide economic downturn dampened some of the sales growth, Brandon Ewing says stronger sales efforts in international markets have helped the company weather the storms. Server Technology sells in 35 countries.

But the company won't look for growth by diversification into other market segments.

Says Carrell Ewing: "We focus on the core business, and we lead the marketplace."