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Chart the path of entrepreneurial success for Lisa Murdock, and on one end of that timeline you’ll find her in fourth grade, doing many of the things other students have done for a long time to make their first dollar: sell Girl Scout cookies, deliver newspapers, mow lawns.

Fast forward to today, and you’ll see how the spirit of being your own boss has manifested itself in Lisa’s current position as president/CEO of ATS Technical, a small-yet-scrappy information technology outsourcing company that has managed to beat out bigger rivals for key U.S. government and Fortune 500 contracts. In fact, ATS’ business model – stay small, agile and cost-effective while keeping up to date on the latest enterprise and new media tech tools – has helped put its stamp on government efforts involving disaster recovery during Hurricane Katrina, the Haiti earthquake and the recent oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

“We don’t have a lot of overhead. We don’t keep a bench of employees. If we did that, and maintained that, we would have to pass that cost along to our customers, so we try to develop our bench once we’re awarded a contract. Then we develop it as a project evolves,” Murdock said. “Also, we engage our customers, not only on the IT level but we make sure culturally that it’s a good fit for the business as a whole as well. Because if we implement a solution – develop a solution for our client – and it’s not embraced throughout the company and the customers aren’t going to use it, then it’s not going to work.”

ATS has some key differences that allows customers to meet internal goals of helping minority/woman-owned businesses: Small Business Administration 8(a) and Texas HUB (Historically Underutilized Business) certifications. The SBA designation, in particular, is recognized not only by the government and Fortune 500 firms, but also makes ATS appealing to small/medium-sized businesses. “So we have that cross-functional expertise.”

On the technical side of things, ATS staff has valuable experience writing custom applications using the latest enterprise products from the top software vendors targeting the corporate world: Microsoft, Oracle, SAP. The company can also provide expertise on the use of Web 2.0 tools that are growing in popularity in the business world.

That mix of traditional IT outsourcing skills – write custom software, install it for clients, then train their employees on how to use it – and knowledge of new media technologies make Murdock’s company a key resource for Clarence Pape, an ATS customer who has worked with Lisa’s firm on U.S. government work. “The capabilities that ATS brings to the table are extraordinarily vast,” Pape said. “Whether it be a senior subject matter expert, or someone who’s deft in new technologies, they’re able to span the gamut to be right where I need them, when I need them.”

Case in point: a U.S. Navy job placement program for sailors on duty that was in development when Hurricane Katrina blew into the Gulf of Mexico. The program was based in New Orleans, and Katrina’s devastation of that city threatened to delay the post-military careers of those sailors. “We still had a mission to accomplish, so we relocated operations to Pensacola. Trying to get everybody that had been dispersed there to work on the project was quite a challenge. ATS made some significant investments to get their resources into an environment where they could support us and continue the mission,” Pape said.

That same flexibility, plus the expertise in collaborative Web 2.0 tools, also helped the government with its recovery efforts following the Haiti earthquake. “I called Lisa, she was able to get me that resource, and I was able to deliver the project on time and on budget,” Pape said. “The same type of ATS project is underway for the Department of Homeland Security as it contends with the massive oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico,” he added.

Lisa Murdock was able to carve out this profitable niche in the information technology industry by seeing an opportunity several years ago while working as a lawyer for a major beverage company. “In my role there I was tasked with the responsibility of preparing contracts and maintaining contracts for the IT department. In the contracts I was preparing, I noticed it was mostly large businesses (getting the work). There wasn’t any diversity there. There were no small businesses, so I thought that would be a good time for me to enter that space.”

Murdock tries to instill in her employees the same spirit of entrepreneurship that followed her from 4th grade to the IT outsourcing industry. She encourages employees to share any ideas that can generate more work for ATS or can make existing contracts more efficient and profitable. Community outreach efforts are also high on her priority list. “We like to partner with our customers. Usually what we do is, we go in, we tailor a program that we can present to them whereby we would be giving back to the community and we try to build our customer’s business as well.”

For more information, go to www.techats.com