Keeping The Lights On In A Shutdown

The federal government might be shut down, but the lights at Kloudtrack stay on 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, President and CEO Mike Binko said.

With eight employees in Rockville and Annapolis, Kloudtrack is a subcontractor on three IT and cloud computing projects within the Defense Information Systems Agency, the Department of Veterans Affairs and the Department of Homeland Security. An example of the kind of innovative small businesses that are helping strengthen Maryland’s growing and upwardly-mobile middle class.

Kloudtrack is making tremendous progress, even in the face of an unnecessary government shutdown, and their work on contracts critical to our national defense and obligations to our veterans continues. However, if the Congress fails to fund our government, it will eventually be forced to put its ambitions and growth on hold.

“We are keeping an eye on it and if it goes beyond a week, then it’s a bigger concern,” Binko said. “We have to ask ‘Are we going to have to carry the load on operating costs?’”

Kloudtrack is a tremendous example of the startup culture that has made Maryland the #1 state in the nation to start a business. Their original focus on financial services firms helped guide them through the transition from legacy IT systems to cheaper, more nimble cloud computing. They look at which systems and data sets are best suited for a move to the cloud, and then provide the software to ensure that sensitive information and processes are safe, secure and auditable. Kloudtrack later broadened its expertise to include the healthcare sector and government.

As it turns out, government contracts have become Kloudtrack’s greatest source of uncertainty. Companies with smaller profiles like Kloudtrack, that have invested in the expertise necessary to handle government contracts, will feel the impacts of an extended shutdown more acutely than their larger counterparts. Small and medium-sized businesses typically don’t have the cash flow, reserves and borrowing capacity to withstand a long-term shutdown that puts their ability to receive payment in jeopardy.

“Small- to medium-sized guys like us, who are at a critical growth stage … that decision making is more on a month and quarters timeframe,” Binko said. “If the shutdown is protracted, if it goes beyond days or weeks, we have decisions to make on hiring, profits and cash flow. And that’s a concern for us.”

For now, despite the uncertainty, Kloudtrack will keep going.

“When the government shuts down, Kloudtrack doesn’t shut down,” Binko said. “We’re going to keep working. Our lights stay on 24/7.”