Optrics In The News

Over the years, fate has dealt Edmonton entrepreneur Bording Ostergaard, P.Eng., plenty of adversity. What does he have to show for it? An Alberta Fast 50 company, of course, and back-to-back national PROFIT 100 awards

By Tom Keyser
Freelance Columnist

With a wry grin, he refers to them as character-building experiences — CBEs for short. Those would be the challenges faced and adversities vanquished as Bording Ostergaard, P.Eng., blazed his bumpy and interesting career path.

When the founder and CEO of Optrics Engineering of Edmonton ticks off the list, he starts with the traffic accident. It happened in 1991, not long after he'd earned his electrical engineering degree from the University of Alberta. His vehicle was rear-ended with terrible force, and the severe and debilitating injuries sidelined Mr. Ostergaard from his career.

From left, the staff of Optrics Engineering: Shaun Sturby, manager, technical services, and partner; David Lee, software developer; Wendy Bradley, office manager; Igor Holovati, technical sales and consulting; John Li, E.I.T., technical sales and consulting; Bording Ostergaard, P.Eng., president, CEO and partner; Blair Zingle, chief operating officer and partner; Scott Young, partner; Rod Miles, E.I.T., software engineering; Petra Schulz, technical sales and consulting; and Jeffry Carpenter, corporate communications and marketing.

After an extended convalescence, the undeterred Mr. Ostergaard created an investment concern in partnership with a licensed mutual-fund dealer. But then, in 2001, after several years of hard work rebuilding his career, his colleague, then in his early 40s, died suddenly.

Without a fund dealer’s licence of his own, Mr. Ostergaard couldn’t carry the business forward. What now? The resourceful Mr. Ostergaard turned his energies in another direction — the aggressive development of a company he’d created earlier as a sideline.

Today known by Optrics Engineering, the name adopted in 2001, the company recently cracked Alberta Venture magazine's Fast 50 as one of the province’s most compelling growth stories. At press time, Profit magazine is acknowledging Optrics for the second year in a row as a national PROFIT 100 company.

And for good reason. Optrics has carved a profitable and fast-growing niche within a global market, providing network consulting, troubleshooting and training services, combined with network-specific hardware and software sales on networks as large as several thousand nodes spanning multiple continents.

With three partners, Mr. Ostergaard has assembled a solid-gold client roster. This isn’t empty rhetoric — the company’s clients include CBS, Boeing, CBC, Raytheon, Wal-Mart, Wells Fargo and even the U.S. Social Security Administration, to name only a few.

Optrics is staffed by a compact, loyal and efficient team, which performs out of proportion to its 10-person size. Some of that stems from Mr. Ostergaard’s upbringing on a central Alberta farm, where he developed spartan work habits and a positive outlook.

"It’s funny, but I find that the harder I work, the luckier I get," Mr. Ostergaard says.

Oh yes. Luck. Let’s get back to that CBE list.

Bloodied By Hail

As recently as 2004, Mr. Ostergaard had little time to contemplate a prosperous future. He was too busy struggling to recover from his most recent disaster — intensive flooding caused by a freak 100-year hailstorm that pummelled Edmonton on July 11.

It was a black day in Optrics’ history. "We were hanging on by our teeth," Mr. Ostergaard confessed to Profit magazine last year.

Many of the company’s troubles crawled from a hole in insurance coverage. The fiasco cost Optrics about $100,000 in all, not including countless hours of unpaid labour, as Mr. Ostergaard and his staff fought to get the operation back on its feet.

Their efforts paid off. With revenues on track and his team growing comfortable with 4,000 square feet of modern office space on Calgary Trail, things have turned out better than Mr. Ostergaard could have dreamed.

It's even a different kind of company than the one he first envisioned.

The Knowledge Business

Originally incorporated as FundSoft, Optics began as an Internet-based financial services company in the mid-1990s. It used newly developed, in-house software to compile and distribute Canadian mutual-fund data.

By spotting market trends, the company helped brokers and dealers manage the fund investments of their own customers, and at its peak was directly involved in the management of over $100 million in funds and secondarily involved with other dealers to over $1 billion.

But as years passed and web-based technology became more sophisticated, the company’s scope broadened. Mr. Ostergaard refers to it as a "growing base of knowledge and expertise about data systems, data management, networks, computer technology, software development and programming."

Add that to business savvy and a demonstrable expertise in Internet marketing and sales, and you can see why Optrics has succeeded to the tune of annual revenues anticipated to surpass $5 million this year. The company has shifted gears with the marketplace, taking full advantage of its expanding skill sets and showcasing Alberta engineering and business talent to the world.

Optrics has also relied on a lean and effective business model, Mr. Ostergaard professes. "We carry virtually no inventory. Most of what we sell is intellectual property, knowledge and consulting services," he says.

"We do 99 per cent of our business through the Internet, including a training component and repairs, so we rarely have to leave the office." Very few clients have ever been met face-to-face.

Revenues are rising, and Mr. Ostergaard's partners are taking on more responsibility for day-to-day operations. That has Mr. Ostergaard thinking about a well-deserved break: "I could do with a three-month vacation in Europe," he confides.

While there, perhaps he'll keep an eye out for new opportunities.

"Someone once described himself as a serial entrepreneur," he says. "I'd say that applies to me as well."