Tampa tech firm offers Google-like perks

While other companies slash jobs and sell off assets to survive, life's a bit different at the Tampa tech firm Accusoft Pegasus.

Software developers who need a break play Asteroids on the company's arcade machine. The cabinets and drawers open to reveal free candy bars and salty chips. And if the staff hits its sales targets, there's a cruise to Cozumel.

Company president Jack Berlin says Accusoft Pegasus has bright, in-demand people. It's best to keep them happy.

"If you went out to Silicon Valley or Boston, you'd see it," Berlin says of his perks.

Accusoft Pegasus creates computer software so that companies can save and store digital images. Think of scanning in a document and storing it in a computer file.

Some of its work involves creating software for bar code systems. Another of its recent projects would allow companies to digitally remove those pesky hole punches in documents.

Berlin and some partners founded the company as Pegasus Imaging in 1991 and in the last few years bought out a rival called Accusoft, merging the two names.

Business fell with the economy in early 2009, but the company has never lost money, and it has rebounded strongly since then, Berlin said. Revenues should hit $22 million this year. That has allowed it to expand even as other companies struggle to hang on.

Berlin, 56, is creating a mini compound bordering the Hillsborough River.

It has outgrown its 20,000-square-foot headquarters on Riverside Drive, just off Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard. So, Berlin is expanding into a 10,000-square-foot building on the other side of the river and hopes to finish renovations by next month.

He also recently bought a dilapidated convenience store next to his headquarters building, which he's using for storage now. Eventually, he will renovate that, too, and install offices, he said.

He's looking for more workers to help fill some of his new offices. At the moment, Accusoft Pegasus employs 74 people in Tampa and another 10 or so in small offices in Boston and Atlanta. He hopes to add on another 10 people in Tampa by year's end.

Berlin has been able to find many of the software developers he needs from Florida colleges, but he admits it can be tough to recruit in the Tampa Bay area. Three of his software engineer jobs have been open for three months, he said.

It's also been a challenge to operate outside of the big tech hubs of San Jose, Calif., and Boston. Every so often he loses electricity at his headquarters, unheard of in bigger tech markets. And, his company only got fiber optics lines fairly recently, he said.

To cope, Berlin tries to create a Google-style atmosphere in Tampa. A vending machine stocks free sodas throughout the day and even beer for after 5 p.m. Software developers tired of writing code all day can play foosball or shoot pool. On occasion, he's taken his entire staff on cruises when the company hits its annual performance targets.

He likes to say that employee turnover is well below 10 percent per year. A longtime customer of Accusoft Pegasus said the company has been able to succeed by sticking to its niche of writing software for digital imaging and not going too far afield.

"If you're a small business and stick to your knitting and don't try to be all things to all people, you'll be successful if you stick to your product and you have a good product," said Alan Wiessner of Integra Business Systems, a Safety Harbor digital imaging company.

Berlin says he has no plans to sell the company, or worse yet, move it to a bigger technology market. He likes the Tampa area and prefers to be near friends and family. He also downplays the idea that he'll move jobs overseas – always a threat in the tech industry.

He uses a small number of contract workers in Russia, but insists that only low-level software development can be done abroad.

"Nobody overseas can compete with what we do," Berlin said.