Terry Rothwell

Celerit Technologies CEO Terry Rothwell’s launching of the IT staffing and solutions company in 1982 is a classic tale of a tech-oriented startup.

After teaching in Fort Smith public schools, she started the business in a spare Greenbrier bedroom with 3 x 5 note cards, a phone, a handful of clients and IT staffers. She hated sales calls, but her husband, Ben, a successful salesman, filtered return calls to her.

Twenty-two years later, Rothwell has grown the company to become an IT services provider for Fortune 100 companies, a 10,000-strong pool of nationwide IT contractors and a planned multibuilding campus.

The company earned a No. 3 ranking in Arkansas for 2003 among the largest minority-owned businesses, with revenue of at least $10 million, according to DiversityBusiness.com, produced by Computer Consulting Associates International Inc. of Southport, Conn. The group ranked Celerit at No. 240 nationally for woman-owned businesses.

“I never dreamed we’d be here,” Rothwell said.

She overcame challenges of marketing IT consultants without sales experience and the perceptions of IT and computers as a “man’s world.”

Some of the most important decisions she made were to expand the business, hire employees and move to Little Rock. That allowed for better nationwide marketing, helped maintain lower operating costs and gave her access to more IT professionals.

Rothwell was named a Technology Pioneer by Arkansas Business in 2002. The Arkansas Tech University trustee is also an honorary member of the search-and-rescue team of Cleburne County and serves with Cleburne County Cares at Heber Springs.

Soon, all Celerit operations will be moved from 2200 N. Rodney Parham Road to a campus at 208 Atkins Road at Little Rock, were a data center recently opened.

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