Feature Story

Tribridge
From Brooklyn to the Bay
By Carol Cortright


It’s a wise man who can take life’s challenges and see them as gifts, transforming hardships into a path to true leadership. After a childhood filled with family upheaval, Tony DiBenedetto, Chairman and CEO of Tribridge, an IT consultant firm with a stellar reputation, realizes that he was “born to help people” and uses his experience to foster growth in others while running a successful company and serving his community.

This Brooklyn native was raised by loving and hard working Italian immigrant grandparents who early on instilled him with practicality and the virtue of treating people fairly. Tony inherited his grandfather’s enthusiasm for sports too, he says, noting that “being a big Yankees fan taught me about doing the best I can.” Even today, he observes professional athletes like Derek Jeter for inspiration: “He’s never satisfied ‘til he gets to the championship.”

During his later teen years, Tony found himself disconnected from his family and living in Ft. Lauderdale. He survived high school, crashing with various friends, working so he could pay rent by the time he was in the ninth grade, all the while making good grades and playing baseball.

Exposure to the different cultures and economic situations of his friends’ families as he moved around helped shape him. “I learned survival instincts and I can communicate with a lot of different people about lots of different things,” he says. Tony believes that his early circumstances led him to the consulting profession. “It’s about listening to people and helping them solve their problems. During my high school years, I always felt there was someone looking out for me and that (quality) rubbed off on me.”

As for his penchant toward technology, it all began with a TI 99 computer and a movie trivia game in the early 1980s. “I really got attached to it,” he admits, adding that a family friend encouraged him to study computers in college. After obtaining a Bachelor of Science degree in Business Management Information Systems from FSU, he was recruited right out of college to join Arthur Andersen, one of the “Big Five” consulting firms, in 1987. He enjoyed his time there, but all along, he was itching to do his own thing.

The fertile imaginations of Tony and two Andersen colleagues, Brian Deming and Mark Herdegen, spawned numerous business ideas. “We must have come up with a hundred ideas from 1993 to 1998 (the year he left Andersen),” he says. In fact, Tony did start two companies on the side — a pizza/sandwich shop and a trucking business.

Their entrepreneurial appetite hit its peak when the three friends sat down and wrote up a serious business plan to develop software aimed at mid-sized companies. They just needed some financial backing to get it off the ground.

Enter one Tom Wallace: Tony met Tom in 1992, back when Tom was still at the helm of The Waldec Group, a network integration company he founded and later sold. Tom is currently CEO of RedVector.com, Inc., and plays an active role on the Tribridge board of directors. Although Tom admired their spirit, he didn’t think software development was the right match for this bunch. “‘I believe in you guys,’” Tony paraphrased their conversation, “‘but don’t do software—do what you know—consulting.’” And by the way, here’s $300,000.

Shocked, but impressed that Tom had that much confidence in the trio, Tony, Brian and Mark were presented with the necessity to create a new business plan - and a name for their nascent company. One inspirational boating trip and a few beers later, the guys had come up with 100 names. “Real dorky, techie names,” Tony confesses.

The eureka moment came when they started talking about how another company had used its island roots as a moniker—now they were onto something. From their vantage point out on the water, the three friends could see both sides of Tampa Bay…and the three bridges that connected east and west. After narrowing it down to four choices, “Tribridge” stuck.

“If (the company) grew outside the Tampa Bay region, the name would connect us back to here,” he explained. “And it could stand for anything,” since they didn’t have a totally clear concept of what Tribridge would become at the time. Tribridge actually has grown outside of the bay area, too. Headquartered in Tampa, the company is represented in five additional markets across the U.S., including Atlanta, Dallas, North Carolina, Orlando and South Florida.

Tony offered a brilliantly obvious strategy for determining growth, something any industry would do well to remember: specialize in one thing and that will set you apart. A company could be “short and wide”—meaning it tries to offer a little bit of everything—or it could be “tall and slender.” Once Tribridge decided to focus on becoming the best Microsoft® Gold Certified implementation partner it could, business really took off. “Saying no (to other programs and applications) was the best thing we could do,” he says. “Streamlining helps you stay focused on the core.”

The numerous awards and recognition bestowed upon Tribridge include the latest from Microsoft itself: in July, it was named the 2007 Microsoft Dynamics™ Partner of the Year for the United States, beating out more than 3,500 other U.S. Microsoft partners. This award acknowledges a company’s expertise, customer satisfaction, sales and growth. Tribridge has been recognized in other areas as well, including nods for customer service, sales and security. Of this latest award from Microsoft that drew national attention, Tony says, “It’s a reflection of our people—that’s where it all starts.”

He’ll admit that “it’s not easy to get a job here. Our corporate culture plays a big part” in who fits the bill. All the same, turnover is low—people like working at Tribridge. The Tampa Bay Business Journal even cited it as one of the “Best Places to Work” in 2006. “We hire curious people. The technology world is ever changing. People who work here have got to be excited about learning new things. We wanted to develop a different kind of firm,” he explains. “We wanted an open culture—everyone comes up with ideas. We want everyone to have that entrepreneurial spirit. Staff’s out in the field talking with customers—they help us change the way we do things (to become more effective).”

As a kid, Tony always had the confidence that he would figure things out, despite the odds facing a young person lacking a strong family support structure. The same buoyancy of spirit is reflected in the way he does business today, tackling challenges with his proven method: “I ask good, active questions until I understand the situation and I have the confidence that whatever it is, we can solve it as a team.”

The office managers feel empowered to make decisions too—“No one gets in trouble here for making a bad decision.” Hand in hand with teamwork is the open culture that invites accessibility—“They know they can come to me if they need help. I’m a hole-filler,” he says.

He encourages staff to all but ignore “the way we do things” with respect to their customers’ perspectives if it can lead to improvement. Then, “we benchmark a solution before rolling it out.” He also likes to break the rules—“If you don’t break the rules sometimes, then you’re not being creative.” Drawing on his formative years spent learning the importance of communication, Tony says, “Everything is open to frank and honest discussion. We don’t sugarcoat anything.”

Marketing brand awareness is critical for the good health of a company and Tribridge team members can be found getting out into the community, delivering speeches, writing articles and developing focused industry campaigns. They look for specific issues to tackle and offer webinars and web campaigns, for example, to get people interested in using Tribridge to help solve their particular problems.

On networking, Tony says, “You have to be out there at every event because every conversation will be a reflection on your brand, and those people talk to other people.” He expands on this: “Some people can’t articulate who they are or what they do” in a memorable way. “We implement Microsoft technology—it’s that simple. People have come up to me and said ‘You’re the Microsoft guy I saw three years ago.’”

Nothing helps a company guide its corporate culture like a good book. So inspired by The Servant: a Simple Story about the True Essence of Leadership by James C. Hunter, Tony makes sure everyone on the management team gets a copy. The book’s premise holds that true leadership is built on authority, not power, and it grows from simple acts that every one of us has within reach: treating others with respect, owning up to your responsibilities, and taking care of the people around you through service and sacrifice.

Which brings us to another hat Tony wears proudly—as a cofounder of the Tampa Bay Technology Forum (TBTF). Around the start of this new millennium, Tony and other local entrepreneurs and business leaders asked a big collective question: “Does anybody even know that Tampa Bay has a technology community?” And then they jumped into action, creating a networking group that strives to break down the barriers on both sides of the bay and get people talking.

TBTF is now 400-plus members strong and represents more than 45,000 tech-related employees in the Tampa Bay area. It provides philanthropic support, like Tony’s subcommittee, CompuTer-rific, that puts computers into the local Boys & Girls Clubs, opening doors to potential careers in math and science that they can reach if “we show them the way to go.” Overall, “TBTF is starting to involve more universities and research facilities,” Tony explains, “but we need to involve a lot more constituents—mayors, more business owners…We want to make Tampa Bay a top ten U.S. technology market by the year 2015.”

For technology professionals, entrepreneurs, and investors alike, getting involved in TBTF is an effective way to make new business contacts, meet mentors and expand networking capabilities. For more information, visit the web site www.tbtf.org. TBTF shares the same passion as other social/economic development vehicles like Creative Tampa Bay. “We want to change the image of Tampa Bay—it’s more than agriculture and tourism,” he assures.

Tony gets a great deal of satisfaction from being able to do what he loves best. He discounted any notion of a “life after Tribridge.” “I love it here. I’m in no rush to do anything else. I enjoy the role of coach and I love watching people at Tribridge reach the next level in their personal lives and careers,” he says enthusiastically, adding, “I also love watching TBTF grow.”

It’s a wise man who can use his gifts to help others find and use their own.

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