Tom Galloway
Business Owner
Tom Galloway believes in coming home in a big way. He brought his growing business with him to Ainsworth, and now he is working to find employees for all of the jobs he has created. The Bassett native brought his fledgling company home to the Sandhills from California in August 2003 when he opened Technologent, employing more than 30 people.
The company is a national provider of technology infrastructure services. It delivers hardware, software and storage products, and provides cross-platform information technology (IT), consulting, network computing and IT outsourcing services nationwide.
“It was both a personal decision and a business decision to come home to my roots,” Galloway said. “It’s good to come back to family and friends. I know the culture - how people work here, and their good ethics. The state of Nebraska helped us lay the foundation.”
Technologent has done so well in Ainsworth that Galloway wants to expand his operations. He has started a new company, Your Selling Team, a sales-support organization focusing on the technology market as an outsourcing solution.
Gallaway said he believes that rural outsourcing is an effective alternative for companies that would otherwise outsource this type of business overseas.
“We now have one contract from a company in northern California that was going to outsource to India, but they decided to give us a try,” Galloway said. “We will need 100 people to handle it.”
Galloway’s plans include expanding his Ainsworth operation to 65-70 people. He also is constructing a new building at Bassett that will employ 45-50 people. He is currently negotiating to establish pilot programs for large call centers that will employ 250 or more people.
He is looking at Atkinson and O’Neill as possible locations for those centers. Because he needs 20 employees right away, Gallaway has been hosting job fairs in several communities in North Central Nebraska and south-central South Dakota. He knows the population of this area is not large enough to supply such a large work force, so he is working with local community leaders to encourage other people to relocate to the area.
Both local employees and people looking to relocate to the area are finding the company’s benefits quite attractive. Besides offering a pay scale higher than average, employees receive paid health, dental and vision insurance, a 401(k) plan, a generous paid, time-off policy, and a full training package.
Galloway graduated from Rock County High School in 1981. He attended Northeast Community College in Norfolk and the then-Kearney State College before finishing his education in California in 1988 with a degree in fire science.
Galloway worked for a computer company in Orange County, Calif., for two years before going into the field of computer distribution for the next 10 years.
“I met people all over the United States while I worked in the distribution business,” he said. “I’d always wanted my own business, so I started Technologent in 2002 - right after the dot-com bust.”
His company currently has eight offices nationwide, including Florida, Colorado, Texas, California, Nebraska and the St. Louis area. He is currently building a home in the Ainsworth-Bassett area.
- Story Courtesy of the Norfolk Daily News