Corky Ellis, Kepware Technologies
Corson "Corky" Ellis of Kepware Technologies. (Brian Fitzgerald/Fitzgerald Photo)
Editor’s Note: A Maine transplant, Corky Ellis, 56, is on a mission to increase the quality and number of Maine university graduates with technology-related degrees. He is CEO and founder of Kepware Technologies, a leading provider of software “drivers” that help industrial equipment communicate and operate. He wants more and better graduates from Maine universities to be pursuing science-and math-based degrees that will help them compete in a global marketplace and make it more attractive for cutting-edge technology businesses like his to set up shop in the state. Ellis serves on the boards of the Gulf of Maine Research Institute and the Maine Center for Entrepreneurial Development. See our blog post with outtake photos at the Fitzgerald Photo blog.
IP: So tell me about Kepware. I keep seeing your name in print.
CE: We write protocols. More than 250 of them. We measure things like wastewater, the flow of liquid gas through pipelines, levels of tanks.
IP: How did you decide to come to Maine?
CE: My children were 5 and 7. I was in New Jersey. We were tiring of the traffic and the pollution and the crowds of New Jersey. We decided we wanted to do an experiment: why don’t we move to Maine? I wanted to try living in a cleaner place—I wanted a simpler life. We moved to Maine for one year in 1995. It was the coldest winter in history. It was 20 below. We loved it.
IP: Why and how did you decide to start Kepware?
CE: Manufacturing hardware is difficult. I wanted to get into software and I knew the world of automation. Software was making a big push into software. We started and had a staff of seven people. We designed graphic interfaces, but we needed drivers. We wrote the drivers. One somehow Ford found the [driver] and they really like it. All they wanted was the driver. We thought, Maybe we should be a driver company. This was around 2000.
IP: You mentioned you started in Yarmouth. Why the move to Portland?
CE: The drivers took off in 2001, and grew out of our [Yarmouth] space. I wanted to be in Portland. Our employees used to get into their cars and drive to Hannaford’s for lunch but here nobody drives. They walk everywhere. It’s creative and not more expensive—parking is the only thing that is.
IP: It looks like you’re growing.
CE: Yes. We started here on the third floor. We had 30 employees at the time, in 10,000 squre feet. That held us for about 5 years. The United Way space on the 4th floor become empty, and we had an architect design the fourth floor. We have 60 plus people now. We will stay in Portland. It’s awesome.
IP: Where did you grow up?
CE: I’m from Red Bank, New Jersey. The Jersey shore. North of Asbury Park, Bruce Springstein territory.
IP: Describe what you do to a five-year-old.
CE: We write software that helps people make things.
IP: What would be an example of something your drivers are used in?
CE: Broadway stage plays…in Spamalot, the Lady of the Lake is controlled by our controller. The ball that drops at Times Square on New Year’s Eve, we control the blinking of the lights. The ROV robots that capped the oil wells in the Gulf, we enabled the flow of information from the well to the surface during the spill.
IP: What are the challenges to being a technology company in Portland, Maine?
CE: Finding smart people. All we are is brainpower here. If we can find smart people who work hard, we will be successful. In 2002 we couldn’t find programmers, so we went to the University of Maine and asked: why are we not getting people to apply? We ended up starting three $8,000 scholarships and have four summer internship programs.
IP: Aside from Kepware, you seem to be very involved in pushing for better education in Maine.
CE: We see technology education as the key to creating a technology economy in Maine. We need to go into the high schools here. We need more engineers. Maine graduates 60 electrical and mechanical engineers a year…should be triple that.
IP: What else are you doing to push for that?
CE: We’ll be going to a meeting with the governor in a week to talk about it. [Maine Technology companies] are all saying the same thing. It’s a long term project but its’ a much more important than cutting the tax rate from eight to six percent.
IP: Switching gears now. In your opinion, what does Portland need to do in the future to keep being such an attractive place?
CE: Portland will continue to attract people. But if you want to help the economy here you have to come up with something like Cambridge [Mass]. Businesses won’t move here because they can’t find qualified help.
IP: What’s the reason for your success?
CE: I don’t have an ego and I’m willing to hire people to do what I’m not good at. I’m stubborn and I hung in there, and I got lucky. Anybody who denies that there is luck is fooling themselves.
IP: What’s something others don’t know about you?
CE: I’m a history fanatic. I listen to books on tape non-stop. I love coaching lacrosse.
IP: What’s your sleep schedule?
CE: I go to bed at 11 and wake up at 5.
IP: What would you do if you weren’t doing this interview?
CE: I’d be answering emails.
IP: What are you carrying in your pocket right now?
CE: An iPhone. I hate AT&T.
© 2011, Brian Fitzgerald. All rights reserved.