It isn’t easy for a company to succeed in the competitive and changing government marketplace, and in a struggling economy it’s even tougher. However, the success and continued strong growth of DLT over the past year prove that our focus on smart growth, business fundamentals, and customer service is working. For instance, this is the fourth year in a row the company has achieved over 20 percent growth in a down economy. In 2010, DLT achieved record bookings of $795 million (up 19 percent) and record revenue of $789 million (up 29 percent) year over year. Not too shabby for a company selling to an industry that has averaged 2% – 3% growth year over year.

Erik Herring has played a lot of basketball in his lifetime. At Thorton Township High School in Harvey, IL, he was a two time State basketball player. While playing guard at George Mason University in Fairfax, VA, he was named CAA All-Conference Player in 2000 and 2001, including in 2001 when he helped lead his team to the NCAA tournament. Following college, he played semi-professional ball in the United State Basketball League (USBL), American Basketball Association (ABA) as well as professionally overseas. Of all the games in his long and successful basketball career though, there’s one game Erik’s unlikely to forget. As a sales representative on the Autodesk Government team, Erik came to DLT in 2008. After work and on weekends, he and friends would frequently get together and play pick-up games at the gym at Georgetown University. As a VAR and information technology solutions provider to the public sector it makes sense to be headquartered less than 30 minutes outside of D.C.

In 2006 digital design was the niche government industry that was cast aside by the publication world. While print magazines focused on the more popular issues of data security and enterprise technology, the 3D design world was often overlooked. Cue [acronym] Magazine. “An abbreviated look at digital design,” [acronym] Magazine got its start to fill the void of publications dedicated to the public sector agencies and employees who use digital design. It was the first of its kind. The bi-annual magazine published by DLT Solutions featured tools, tips, and case studies for government end users that use 3D design and CAD software to better serve their constituents. “We had published a compilation of case studies in the past as a newsletter called D3,” says Christine Schaefer, VP Marketing, DLT Solutions. “But, we identified that there was a void that needed to be filled with valuable content, specifically tailored to government-focused CAD and Geospatial audiences.”

Whereas trade show participation enables us to keep up-to-date on the latest federal IT industry trends, gain competitor insight, and increase visibility of the DLT brand, tech days provide a more intimate setting where DLT and our vendor partners get the opportunity to teach and inform our public sector customers of our latest and greatest product offerings. In one such example, DLT Solutions partnered with Quest Software to host a small number of successful TOAD Tech Days. TOADs for Oracle is Quest’s flagship product and is an Oracle database management solution – another one of our top-tier vendor partners. Attendees to our TOAD Tech Days learned TOAD tips and tricks, how to customize their TOAD environment, all in the name of being more productive.

The most commonly held view is that the Challenge coin custom began with the Army Air Corps (precursor of the US Air Force) during World War I. Symbolizing the importance of unity and teamwork, it has become tradition for a group carrying a challenge coin to keep it on them at all times. To ensure compliance, if someone produced their coin and the other person cannot, the challenged would owe something to the challenger (usually a drink). The tradition has evolved over the years, and the coin can now be regarded as an award for achievements and to boost morale. As DLT Solutions celebrates its 20th Anniversary this year, we wanted to thank our employees with a memorable and meaningful token in appreciation of all they do. The idea to reward employees with a Challenge Coin came from Van Ristau, our CTO, who served as a Lieutenant in the U.S. Naval Reserve. Van proposed we provide meaningful recognition to employees in lieu of big prizes like watches or parking spaces.

As the OMB can attest, for a lot of federal IT procurement folks, September signals a rush to exhaust the current year’s budget. The “use it or lose it” mentality takes over and agency officials look to spend what’s remaining of last year’s fiscal funding as well as guarantee a healthy future budget. The end-of-year feeding frenzy is alive and well in the federal government which for DLT means in September, we’re running on all cylinders. We understand the last minute push agencies experience when preparing bids, publishing proposals, and making awards during the fiscal year-end busy season. With over 20 years experience providing the best in IT solutions and support to the federal government, DLT does our best to simplify year end IT procurement.

It’s a cool 32 degrees outside in the dead of winter and DLT Solutions’ employees are dusting off their bathing suits and suntan lotion. Why? Because they’re about to jet set to the Caribbean for their all-expenses-paid, highly coveted, team trip. One of the highlights of working at DLT, team trips to Caribbean destinations are awarded to sales divisions if that division hits their annual sales goal. But the sales reps aren’t the only employees that benefit from hitting their sales goal. DLT provides the same opportunity to employees from HR, Marketing and Accounting. Because driving revenue to ensure we hit our sales goals is a team effort, team trips share the “everybody or nobody” mentality. In fact, six years ago, the company was surveyed about the team trip format. Employees were given the choice of revamping the incentive program to send individual employees who hit their personal goals versus sending the entire team if the collective goal was met. The results were unanimous to keep the team trip in place as is; sending employees as a team. This speaks to the “we are one team” mentality which has been a driving factor behind DLT’s growth.

Just as quickly as “virtualization” became a buzzword amongst federal government IT users, the unanswered questions about the blossoming technology popped up just as fast. What is it? How can I implement it? Will the costs outweigh the benefits? And what’s up with this “cloud” I’ve been hearing so much about? As the foundation for cloud computing and a means to significantly cut your data center and computing costs, our customers had a lot of questions about navigating the “ins and outs” of virtualization in a government environment. Our answer? Virtualization for Government for Dummies.

With its commercial business solutions flourishing, in 2009, Google’s government division was beginning to blossom. Although they had the brand name, they didn’t have the contract vehicles, the organizational expertise or resources to fully penetrate the competitive public sector IT market. We were hoping to lend them a hand. Some of Google’s senior staff became familiar with DLT’s competitive advantage from having previously worked with DLT’s Enterprise Applications division. What really helped set ourselves apart from other resellers competing for Google’s affection was our award-winning marketing and lead generation factory and our dedication to our vendor partners to not onboard a competing vendor.

What do a vuvuzela, a gong, an awakening bell, and a cymbal-banging monkey all have in common? Besides all being capable of waking the dead, at DLT they’re all a symbol of accomplishment. DLT’s growth rate over the previous few years has been nothing short of inspiring. That level of growth wouldn’t have been possible without the efforts of our sales teams. So when members of the teams perform above expectations, we recognize it.