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V O L . X X I V N O. V I M A R C H 1 9 , 2 0 1 8 16 Tilson 16 Middle St., Portland Founded: 1996 Employees: 400 nationwide, 100 in Maine Sales: $77 million expected in 2018, $44 million in 2017, $36 million in 2016 Contact: info@tilsontech.com www.tilsontech.com L ike his team of 100 employees at Tilson's new $4 million Portland headquarters, CEO Joshua Broder doesn't have an offi ce or a desk in the sprawling open-plan space it owns at 16 Middle St. "In activity-based work, you don't have any assigned seats, and you can take any available workstation," Broder says during an interview in a glassed-in room named Central Perk. " e idea is that a lot of us aren't here every day, and so we don't tie down resources." e 3-year-old self-described work- aphile, who puts in 100 hours a week for the network deployment and IT profes- sional services fi rm he's led for nearly a decade, gets by on little sleep and spends two-thirds of his time on the road. When in Portland, he likes perch- ing in Tilson's kitchen, and not just to fuel his 20-cup-a-day coff ee habit, but to be "socially in the river" as he puts it. "It's the extreme manifestation of the open door. I don't even have a door," he adds. "I'm open storage, so I'm out there in the kitchen and people can come talk to me whenever, about anything." "Tilson – On a Mission" is the fi rm's tagline, and Broder says that mission is to design and build America's information infrastructure software and hardware. He also sees that as his personal mission, along with creating an environment for like-minded "high- performance happy people" who push each other to be better: "I've never encountered a group of smarter, more capable people, and they push me every day to keep up," he says. Broder, a decorated Army veteran and self-taught network engineer, took the reins at Tilson in 200 when it employed about 10 people who provided IT consulting and software develop- ment. It added network deployment services that year, and Broder says that both have grown explosively since. He was Tilson's third employee when he joined in early 2007. Today there are 400 on the payroll nationwide, about half of whom are veter- ans, in nearly 20 locations. Sales went up from $36 million in 2016 to $44 million in 2017. Broder projects $77 million in 201. Tilson's mission man Broder leads the fast-growing Portland firm towards $77M in annual sales B Y R E N E E C O R D E S LARGE COMPANY Joshua Broder CEO, Tilson P H O T O / T I M G R E E N WAY Caption caption C O N T I N U E D O N PA G E 1 8 » Joshua Broder, CEO of Tilson, in the lobby at the new offi ce in Portland. The offi ces feature an open layout with no assigned workspaces or offi ces.

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