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Whiz kid to entrepreneur
Job with Army just beginning
Jane Larson
The Arizona Republic
Oct. 25,
2000
Teri Spencer's not the mother of the Internet, but she's
close.
A University of Arizona engineering grad, Spencer took
a civilian job with the Army in 1989 and became one of the
young guns who helped build vast computer networks at bases
worldwide.
Today she's president and chief executive officer of
Ephibian, a Tucson company she and four other civilians from
Fort Huachuca started in 1996. Ephibian prides itself on
hiring the "technical elite," schmoozing prospective clients
with bright orange-and-blue Nerf guns and wearing orange "Will
build Web sites for equity" T-shirts at garage.com
conferences.
So complete is Spencer's transformation from military
whiz kid to Internet entrepreneur that she won President of
the Year honors from AZSoft.net, the Arizona Software &
Internet Association, this year.
"I was in the military, and I hated the people I worked
for," AZSoft.net President Ed Denison said. "It says a lot
about her" and the culture she created that Ephibian employees
nominated her for the award, he added.
The Army of the late '80s was changing from
communications and mainframes to the world of databases and
networking technology with rollouts all around the world.
"A lot of people jumped, because they'd been doing
something for 20 years, and you had a lot of kids coming out
of school . . . taking on that level of responsibility,"
Spencer said.
At one point, Spencer was managing a team of 100
government engineers while working with a private contractor
on a $1 billion installation.
The team frequently called hardware resellers as late
as 9 p.m. One couldn't believe it.
"He'd say, 'What are you guys still doing there? This
is the government you're working for. You should take your
smarts and your intellect and go out and sell this somewhere
else,' " said Henry Guy, chief financial officer.
The supplier introduced Spencer to his financial
backer, a New York holding company named Xsource Corp. It put
$2 million into Ephibian and now owns the company.
Ephibian specializes in putting businesses on the Web.
Half its clients are household names such as AOL and AT&T;
the other half are "never-heard-of -'ems-but-going-places,"
Guy said.
Ephibian did the portal for San Francisco-based
Contest.com and parts of the real-estate transaction software
for Scottsdale-based Homebid.com.
"We had gone through many different opportunities in
the Bay Area," said Kurt Ludwigsen, president of Contest.com.
"Ephibian seemed not only as qualified as companies here, but
their people are a little more dedicated."
Homebid.com selected Ephibian as a vendor because of
its employees' Java and Unix skills, said Mark Armstrong, vice
president of technology.
He said Spencer is a straight shooter who is good at
adapting to change.
Ephibian has 50 employees. Everyone must be a
generalist and know the underlying systems, plus have a
specialty such as Java.
"The kind of folks we want are the ones who leave at
the end of the day, go home and log back on for fun," Guy
said.
It's not as businesslike as it sounds.
Spencer believes in celebrating successes with tubing
trips, bowling parties and visits to Kartchner Caverns. Ice
cream, Nerf guns and $80 yo-yos make for popular incentives.
The company hopes to open a Phoenix office by year's
end.
Reach the reporter at jane.larson@arizonarepublic.com
or (602) 444-8280.
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