From its headquarters in Claremont, New Hampshire, Red River has earned a national reputation as a leading technology solutions provider. For twenty-three years, Red River has thrived in the evolving IT market by providing true value to organizations looking to transform how they use technology to deliver services to citizens, soldiers, consumers, and employees. Red River’s Chief Operating Officer, Dan McGee, shared his insights on the continued success of the company.
Why New Hampshire
Red River started in 1995 in New Hampshire’s Upper Valley with just a handful of people, customizing and reselling PCs and servers. Through well-managed, long-term sustainable growth, we have become a premier services organization with over 350 employees, 150 of them are in New Hampshire. Acquisitions and organic customer growth, especially in the federal government, has driven us to establish new locations in cities like Reston, Virginia, Austin, Texas and Sacramento, California, but New Hampshire will always be our headquarters and remain the “home” of our business.
As a services-led organization, people are our greatest asset. We’re able to attract and cultivate talent from New Hampshire as well as bring in exceptional people from around the country. We have established Hubs of Excellence across the country – places where we specialize in particular segments of our business. Our hub or “innovation launch pad” here in Claremont enables our people to build and test advanced solutions for our customers. It’s fun and engaging for our employees and transformational for our customers. Through our Hubs, we can connect our employees across the country to develop new solutions and work towards a common mission of making a business or mission impact for our customers.
Talent Strategy is a Priority
As I said earlier, our greatest asset is our people. Red River employees are highly trained, efficient and ethical professionals taking pride, ownership, and responsibility in all engagements with our customers and partners. With that said, talent recruitment, development, and retention is key to our long-term success. The foundation of our talent strategy is our company culture. While there are many factors that influence our culture, what ultimately keeps our team engaged and drives new talent to our business is a sense of belonging, feelings of pride, worth and acceptance and the understanding that our company will provide opportunities for growth – both professionally and personally.
We love our organizational culture, but we’re careful to let it evolve organically across locations and departments as we grow here in New Hampshire and in other cities across the United States. Philanthropy is a key ingredient in our culture. Our employees have embraced the idea of supporting efforts to give back to the communities in which we live and serve. Our philanthropic work and volunteer efforts impact an extensive array of veteran programs, youth STEM initiatives, mentorships, and scholarships. We support many of these programs through the Red River Charitable Foundation (RRCF) which we established in 2010. As a board member, I am personally grateful for what we can provide to programs that mean the most to our organization and employees.
Words of Wisdom
New Hampshire is a small state, and there are more resources available than one may think. I recommend entrepreneurs network with each other and stay connected to our state as they grow. You’d be surprised how much you can learn from a local network of business, academic, non-profit and government leaders. It’s not a competition – we are all striving to grow our organizations here in NH and hopefully keep our talent here as well.
What’s Next
We have grown from 75 to 350 employees in five years! We are looking forward to our continued growth and innovation in the government sector and are working diligently to expand our private sector solutions portfolio, capitalizing on the excellent work we have done in healthcare, defense, and other markets. Our Sales Academy and IT Training programs continue to attract great talent that enables our growth. I am excited to take the business and financial model that has been working for us for the past two decades to the next level while making sure our employees are engaged and thriving.