SUCCESS STORIES > SANTA ROSA
AppRiver, LLC
“We started with two guys and a spam trap,” said co-founders Michael Murdoch and Joel Smith when asked about their 2002 start-up company.
Today, over 25,000 organizations and businesses worldwide, depend on AppRiver for simple yet powerful email security and messaging collaboration technology. Beginning with two employees, AppRiver now employs 45 people at their Gulf Breeze headquarters and rank as one of the largest email security managed service providers.
CEO Michael Murdoch, with more than two decades of high-tech industry experience, is the chief architect of AppRiver’s business strategies. In addition, he is responsible for financial management and building the management team.
Serving as Chief Technology Officer, Pensacola native Joel Smith, with 15 years of technology sector experience, leads the Research & Development team and the Network Operations Center. Murdoch said of Smith, “He is the technical visionary, without a doubt.” Scott Cutler, executive vice president, has been instrumental in building the company’s extensive worldwide customer base using an international channel distribution strategy. “While the Internet makes it possible to operate a global business from Gulf Breeze, the success we’ve enjoyed thus far is a direct result of the quality of our people” said Cutler.
However, AppRiver is not content to sit on its laurels. This past September 2006, AppRiver joined forces with Pensacola-based Creative Data Concepts to form GridSouth Networks, LLC. With a $100,000 grant from WIRED Northwest Florida Initiative Goverance Council, all systems are on go for GridSouth Networks.
Helping others is also vitally important to AppRiver which each year contributes approximately 1% of company revenue to charity.
Ropella & Associates
Ropella grows great companies through executive search, leadership transformation and organizational improvement. Ropella is the leading Executive Search and Consulting firm specializing in the chemical and allied industries, such as consumer products companies that produce products ranging from soaps and pharmaceuticals to plastics and food. Ropella continues to grow rapidly by expanding services to other industries closely related to the chemical industry, such as nanotechnology, biotechnology and medical technology. From their headquarters in Milton in Santa Rosa County, Florida, Ropella consultants are in constant contact with many of the world’s largest companies.
Ropella helps companies find, hire, develop and retain their most important competitive advantage—talented people. Their services are becoming ever more valuable nationwide and worldwide as increased competition, technology and globalization are all driving the demand for talented professionals. Even more significant is the large number of senior employees approaching retirement over the next ten years.
Ropella is ready to meet this challenge. The firm has created the world’s largest database of individuals working in the chemical and related industries. They also have been steadily growing their team of consultants and expect to have 50 total search consultants in the next three to five years. To accommodate this growth, they are near completion on phase one of a new corporate headquarters in the Santa Rosa Industrial Park. The first, 15,000 square-foot, phase will include a racquetball court, exercise room, tennis courts and a park-like, outdoor entertainment area.
Gearing up for unprecedented growth, Patrick Ropella, President and CEO of Ropella and a native of Chicago, is quick to credit not only his internal team, which he values greatly, but also the efforts of the TEAM Santa Rosa Economic Development Council, the University of West Florida Small Business Development Center and the members of the Chambers of Commerce. Together they have helped secure a bright future for the company. It’s clear that Santa Rosa County has no shortage of the resources and talent needed to grow Ropella as a true global player in their field.