Ari Santiago, President of IT Direct

I received my first computer at 14 years old, and by the time I was 15 my first computer business was underway.

From the start working with computers was more than just a business – it became an outlet of sorts after a skiing accident that left me a paraplegic at the age of 13. It was then that a family friend brought me a computer. With a lot of time on my hands I really got into the machine.

Working with the computer helped me to cope with the impact of my paralysis. I went from being a three or four season athlete to not – in the blink of an eye. I tried to get back into sports and it wasn’t the same, but there was something about working on machines that was great and it came easy to me.

I planned to go into law like my father and started at Tufts University but the computer never left me. At 4 a.m. when you had a paper due the next morning and the computer was on the fritz, it was my door you knocked on.

A few years into college, I still didn’t plan on working in technology for a career. It felt like a hobby. It was just something I loved to do, however, near the end of my college studies I realized being a lawyer wasn’t the path for me and computers came calling again. I returned to Hartford to spend nine months helping my mother, Robin, upgrade the computer system at her dental office. As we worked to move the office into a paperless world the scope grew and I ended up restructuring the front office staff and building a new administrative team .

From there I went to build an IT network for an environmental engineering firm. Eventually, as the economy hit a rough patch, they saw in me a talent for sales and had me out on the road. I closed my first pitch and from there the pressure was on to spend more of my time out in the field selling and less time managing our technology systems.

After a little less than a year in this dual role, I put it all together and realized that I should put my sales, team building and network engineering skills together to provide high quality, reliable, and responsive IT services to businesses through the community. The need for talented staff to help firms close the gap between their business needs and the vast options in technology was clear.

With a determination to help small and mid-size organizations harness the power of technology I founded IT Direct in 2002, right out of my apartment. My first client was my previous employer and things have grown steadily ever since. After adding staff and clients, we moved to our first office and over time have grown in size and scope and just recently completed our fourth office expansion.

Our clients range from engineering and law firms to doctors offices and nursing homes from science museums to college football stadiums, but in all cases our clients want to spend their valuable time and energy focusing on servicing their clients rather than managing their computer systems. We proudly serve professional service firms and non-profit organizations with offices from Maine to North Carolina.

We are the reliable, experienced and responsive partner for dozens of organizations and we only have one question. How can we help you?