Networking a career with technology and people

Name: Dustin Flaugher
Title: President
Company: TriCore Logic
Years with company: 6
Education: ITT Technical Institute
Hobbies: Travel, Golf, Craft Beer
Company website: www.TriCoreLogic.com

You built Tri-Core from the ground up. How did this come about?
While working full time at Lutheran Medical Group, I had maintained some key business relationships from a previous IT job I had. Over the years of working at LMG, I worked on the side servicing these key clients and as the 2 ½ years went on, the referrals from these clients became large enough that I needed help from my now business partner Justin Miller and we decided to start TriCore Logic, LLC.

Please provide a brief explanation of TriCore’s main services:
Our main service is customer service and the overall management of all of our clients technology needs. Whether it’s hardware, software, backup and disaster recovery, email and other cloud services, or other technology venders (such as phone system providers, print/copy providers, or 3rd party software providers), we are who our clients trust to pull it all together and make everything work efficiently.

Referrals played a big part in your company’s growth. What is your main goal when working with a customer?
Referrals definitely do play a big role, with around 90% of our business coming from existing clients referrals. Our biggest goal is providing Worry Free IT. In order to truly be Worry Free however, we focus on the business relationship between our clients and TriCore Logic. It’s incredibly important to have a solid understanding of business needs and expectations to have a really good business relationship, and these referrals are a huge part of that. All of the technical aspects of the business are accessible by any other IT provider, and we pride ourselves on bringing the IT experience to another level.

How do you make IT personable?
Simply by not putting the technology first. Since we have a vast array of pieces of technology we could use at any given client, so this gives us the ability to bring our relationship to more of personal level and find out what the business needs and goals are, and then custom tailor solutions for each client. Once we’ve established these great relationships, our clients have full confidence in the technology solutions we provide to them.

Did you ever picture yourself as a business owner when you were younger?
To be completely honest I’m not sure. I never ruled it out I suppose. I just know that I wanted to be part of an amazing team, and I’m thankful that we have that here at TriCore.

What has been the most challenging aspect of running a business?
The hardest thing has been deciding to end a business relationship with a client. Sometimes the term trimming the fat has been used, but a few years ago we decided to change our business model to focus on providing only “flat rate” or yearly contracts. Once we enacted this decision, we still had clients that were on the “break/fix” model and we had to eventually let them go if they didn’t want to go with our new model.

What did you have to learn along the way to make the company profitable that you didn’t necessarily go to school for?
Honestly it was making the decision to move downtown. Since being down here it’s opened us up to much more visibility and the opportunity to make so many great business contacts.

What’s been to most rewarding aspect of owning a company?
Hiring our first employee Andrew Hetrick and hearing him talk about how much he loves his job. Hands down the best part of my job.

Being located downtown Fort Wayne, TriCore has become involved in the revival of activity downtown. How do you see this involvement benefitting TriCore and what are a few of the organizations or activities you have supported?
We do love supporting as much as we can downtown, we absolutely love it down here! I think any involvement in the community is a good thing for us just for exposure, even though our first goal of any of our involvement is that particular event or organization we’re donating to. We’re a perpetual supporter of the Downtown Improvement District, Cinema Center, Fort Wayne Trails, and Fort Wayne Children’s Choir. We also love supporting our clients by giving away gift cards to their places of business, so follow them all @TriCoreLogic on everything. And this year we’re a proud event sponsor of the Middle Waves music festival, of which we’ll be giving away free VIP tickets so follow us on Facebook and Twitter!

What is your favorite type of computer and why?
My Mac Pro, because it’s been the most reliable and powerful computer I’ve ever owned. And it looks nothing like a computer.

If a student were to learn any programming language, which one would you recommend the student learn?
I would have to refer you to one of my business colleagues that I refer all of my programming needs to. Programming was something I never pursued.

The term “geek” is often associated with the IT profession. Do you consider yourself a geek? Why or why not?
I’m sure I can be if I’m around other IT people but I don’t typically geek out on it. I’m mostly passionate about providing the best customer experience that I can through customer service and support.