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The changing face of Virginia business
Larry Crewe
Crewestone Technologies
Hampton
by
Lisa Antonelli Bacon
Virginia Business
March
2005
As
early as elementary school in Newport News, Larry Crewe
knew he wanted to work for NASA. Now, at 54, he not
only counts NASA among his clients, he is the agency’s
go-to man for video production services.
Like any government agency, when NASA contracts for
video services, it has to take the lowest bid, which
often means settling for less than ideal product. NASA’s
solution since the early 1980s has been to make sure
that the bid-winning company hires Larry Crewe.
Since he graduated from Norfolk State University, Crewe
has been in and out of NASA’s doors, working for
eight different contractors. When NASA wanted to illustrate
ozone depletion for Congress, Crewe’s job was
to turn numbers into pictures, essentially compressing
years of data into 10 minutes of video, so that Congress
could understand how quickly the ozone was thinning.
When the agency needed technology to speedily translate
computer-generated images to videotape, Crewe created
the necessary hardware. While contractors came and went,
Crewe was the constant in the equation.
Then in 1999, Crewe decided to cut out the middleman
and, with two partners, created Crewestone Technologies
Inc., a full-service production company. Although it
is a privately held, minority-owned business, Crewe
says he doesn’t use the minority distinction unless
the contract under bid is a set aside.
Crewe claims that whatever the request, Crewe-stone
“can do it faster, better, cheaper.” Ac-cording
to NASA, he isn’t exaggerating. “In government
business, you often have to deal with people who are
more interested in getting the bid than developing the
project,” says Tom Pinelli, who manages NASA’s
Langley Center for Distance Learning. “Larry represents
a company that delivers what they promise, on time and
on budget, and it’s a quality product. Sometimes
in the marketplace with government, one of those three
things will be compromised. Not with Crewestone. They
are quite different.”
Last year, in addition to winning NASA’s “Videographer
of the Year” award, Crewestone Technologies Inc.
won NASA’s award for “Minority Subcon-tractor
of the Year,” marking the first time a service
contractor — not a research or IT company —
won.
Crewestone Technologies has grown exponentially in its
six years. “It’s almost comical how fast
we’ve grown,” says Crewe. The first two
years, revenues averaged $1,500 a year. “That’s
not $15,000,” he stresses. The third year saw
revenues rise to $14,000, but the speed of growth still
wasn’t fast enough for Crewe. “I realized
then that we have a limited amount of time to make ourselves
worthwhile.” With more aggressive salesmanship,
according to Crewe, the company’s revenues jumped
to $700,000 in its fourth year. And last year, revenues
hit $2 million. Crewe says his approach was simple.
“You have to sell yourself.”
Always shooting for the stars, Crewe says he won’t
be satisfied until Crewestone is “the Wal-Mart
of video production services.”
“I want to be the one-stop shop for all their
video needs, from design to installation.” At
its current growth rate, one could extrapolate that
Crewestone will reach that goal by the end of the decade.
Crewe, however, doesn’t care to prognosticate.
“We’re halfway there.”
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