News Release
PQA Has a plan in place to create about 300 jobs
June 3, 2009
When Keith McIntosh's early-morning flight touches down in Toronto today, he'll launch into the first of eight meetings he has lined up with potential clients.
‘We’ve built our business on good value and good service and networking,’ says Keith McIntosh, president of Fredericton tech company Professional Quality Assurance Ltd. (PQA). The firm’s revenues have ballooned by more than 2,000 per cent from 2003 to 2008, earning PQA the distinction of being named to Profit magazine’s annual list of top 100 high-growth companies when the publication goes to print Thursday. PQA is the fastest-growing on the magazine’s Atlantic Canadian list.
The president of Fredericton tech company Professional Quality Assurance Ltd. (PQA) is hoping to tap into a southern Ontario market key to his company's growth strategy, which stretches from coast-to-coast and even into Europe.
"I expect to be hiring over the summer," McIntosh said in an interview Tuesday.
And with a new London, Ont.-based salesman pounding the pavement for PQA for the first time, the executive expects to be looking in New Brunswick for employees to complete contracts in quality assurance, software testing, e-learning and content development.
"We haven't had a sales team until now," he said, highlighting his hopes for the coming few years: "We have a plan and structure in place to create about 300 more jobs in New Brunswick."
The firm's revenues have ballooned by more than 2,000 per cent from 2003 to 2008, earning PQA the distinction of being named to Profit magazine's annual list of top 100 high-growth companies when the publication goes to print Thursday.
The company was the fastest-growing on the magazine's Atlantic Canadian list, followed by Mad Rock Marine Solutions Inc., of St. John's, Ad-Dispatch Ltd., of Dartmouth, N.S., and Armament Technology Inc., of Halifax.
McIntosh started PQA in 1997 and only employed two people in 2003 before landing the company's first international contract with a California firm the following year.
In 2003, PQA raked in $254,000 in revenues; in 2008, the company's revenues amounted to more than $5 million and the firm's staff climbed to 119, prompting McIntosh to open an office in Moncton and Dartmouth, N.S.
But the firm took a hit during the economic downturn this winter, McIntosh said, when it experienced a "plateau" and had to shed a few jobs, reducing the employee count to about 100.
"It's been a tough winter for everyone," he said. And while McIntosh doesn't believe we've seen the worst of the recession, the executive says confidence is coming back to the marketplace.
"We've hit the bottom of the confidence meter," he said, pointing to an uptick that has already begun. "We've just closed a couple of big deals."
He pointed to a partnership PQA cemented last month with Vancouver's Silverpath Technologies Inc., a small firm that McIntosh expects will go out and source big contracts PQA - with its larger workforce - can help satisfy quickly.
"The Vancouver one in particular is looking for a way to approach clients who may want large enterprise-level skilled teams, but without having a large staff working in Vancouver," he said. "It's much more economical if we can do it here in New Brunswick.
"They'll represent us well but we'll be able to help them. It seems like a pretty good fit."
Working collaboratively and by referral from clients has been a key secret to the company's success and growth, which McIntosh calls "organic."
"We've built our business on good value and good service and networking," McIntosh said.
REBECCA PENTY
Telegraph-Journal