Custom MicroSystems

Custom MicroSystems Changes, Grows

Jeff Johnson and two other investors formed Custom MicroSystems in May 1993 as a desktop computer manufacturer. But in 1997, squeezed out of manufacturing by shrinking profit margins, Johnson transformed the company to offer a full range of computer services, including system design and maintenance, training, and Year 2000 consulting.

The accounting firm of Moore Stephens Frost is a good example client, Johnson says.

“We analyzed how they were currently doing business, how their technology worked together, and we made a plan to make their technology better fit their business.

“Now we do a facilities management deal … The people that are in that building and run that system are all on our payroll,” Johnson says. “We actually manage that system for them.”

As the company changed, though, Johnson was hit with a new challenge: finding qualified people to create, analyze and improve client computer systems.

The solution, he soon determined, was to hire college-educated people who were smart enough to solve problems and to train those hires as computer systems analysts.

The company bought a certified Microsoft training school in Fayetteville called Micro Solutions, and now uses the operation to teach its own employees through a paid six-month program.

Custom MicroSystems exceeded $10 million in revenue last year and has experienced an average revenue growth of 39 percent over the past three years. Unbelievably, Johnson expects revenue to double next year to more than $20 million with the opening of new offices in Memphis and Tulsa. But Johnson says the rapid growth hasn’t hurt cash flow.

Custom MicroSystems also has become very involved with Positive Atmosphere Reaches Kids (PARK), a Little Rock nonprofit organization designed to improve the lives of at-risk children. Johnson helps the organization raise money, and his company actually has donated a computer lab and a 15-passenger van to PARK.

Previous Honorees