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Sigmatech, Inc. is hiring 20 to 25 people for its first office in Maryland. Based in Huntsville, Ala., the defense service provider opened its first Maryland office in May in Belcamp, near Aberdeen Proving Ground in Harford County.

The office started off with a staff of two but Brian Simmons, senior vice president for Washington, D.C., and APG operations, says he is looking to add system engineers, scientists and acquisiton experts by the end of this year.

“We are interested in supporting the U.S. Army at APG. What they do is different from Huntsville,” site of the U.S. Army Aviation and Missile Command at Redstone Arsenal and NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center, Simmons says.
 
“Every other weapons program comes through APG at some point,” says Simmons. With future contracts in “R&D (research and development), test evaluation, foreign military sales and security assistance to allies at APG, my goal is for the office to pay for itself by the end of the year.” 
 
Sigmatech opened its first office outside its Alabama headquarters last year in Crystal City, Va., to serve the northern Virginia-Washington, D.C., market. The private company has 320 employees, two-thirds of them in Huntsville, and $60 million in annual revenue.
 
Sigmatech’s APG office is located in the Water’s Edge Corporate Campus. “It is a bold move for us because of cutbacks, a tight market. But the timing is right for us,” says Simmons. “We need to grow and bolster our technical talent.”
 
Simmons says the company was particularly interested in APG because after the U.S. Department of Defense’s 2005 Base Realignment and Closure, several large military-defense agencies moved there.
 
“After Huntsville, APG is the next largest Army hub for weapons development and acquisition, new R&D, computers and intelligence,” he says.
 
Simmons expects to expand Sigmatech’s e-learning courses to future clients at APG. Based on a topic chosen by the client, the company designs a curriculum and develops a web-based instructional course. For example, one client was the United States Military Academy West Point, for which Sigmatech developed a course for its counter-terrorism center.
 
Source: Brian Simmons, Sigmatech, Inc.
Writer: Barbara Pash
 
 
 
 

Maybe you've tried bar-hopping, but what about restaurant-hopping? Dishcrawl, which launches in Baltimore this month, dubs itself as a “gastronomic adventure” and encourages guests to try a variety of foods in selected neighborhoods.

Baltimore’s first Dishcrawl will be held in Canton April 17, taking diners to four “secret” restaurants. Founder Tracy Lee says the company will expand the culinary social experience to Fells Point, Federal Hill, Charles Village and Hampden, though no events have been scheduled yet. If Baltimore City crawls are successful, Lee says she will consider expanding Dishcrawl to Baltimore County.  

Lee launched Dishcrawl in the San Francisco Bay Area in 2010 as a way to share her favorite restaurants. Though it's now up and running in New York, Montreal, Ottawa, San Jose, Toronto, Philadelphia and Washington, D.C., it wasn’t an instant success.

“In the beginning, it was really hard to figure out how to get the word out,” Lee says. “I would spend 20 hours promoting to get 20 people to an event.”

Lee turned to social media to help promote the crawls. She and her team, which includes ambassadors in each city, use Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and other social media outlets to spread the word.

“I love Baltimore and the diverse food scene,” Lee says. “The community and coming together as a group of foodies is what makes Dishcrawl successful in cities.”

Curious as to which Canton restaurants will be included in the inaugural crawl? Keep an eye on Twitter, where the team will drop hints at @dishcrawlbal. Ticket holders will receive an email with the meeting location 48 hours prior to the crawl.   

The first three restaurants will feature one dish each and the the fourth will serve dessert. Chefs and restaurateurs will share stories, as well. Tickets cost $45, excluding alcohol.


Writer: Renee Libby Beck
Source: Tracy Lee, Dishcrawl 

StraighterLine, a Baltimore startup that recently got $10 million in venture funding, will soon move out of its incubator into a place of its own.

Seeking to accommodate its expanding staff, the company plans to relocate as early as Aug. 1 to a new, 6,000-square-foot office, tripling its space, says Marketing Manager, Steven Pope.
 
Its current space in The Johns Hopkins University Eastern Campus at 1101 E. 33rd St. in Waverly is 1,900 square feet and part of the Emerging Technology Center.
 
The company is still firming up a location, but the new space will be "five to 10 minutes away" from its present office, Pope says. 
 
"(We are) trying to capitalize on the market's readiness for a change in the education industry. We're trying to become the Amazon of online education. That's obviously a big goal, but we're one step closer to achieving it this year because of our expansions," Pope says.
 
The relocation is being supported by a $10 million investment to the company made in part by FirstMark Capital, a New York venture capital firm. CityLight Capital and Chrysalis Ventures also contributed to the investment.
 
Since the beginning of the year, the company has grown from 11 employees to its current staff of 22. It plans to grow to 30 employees in the next few months, Pope says.
 
The company is currently hiring subject matter experts and marketing and  software development staff.
 
StraighterLine provides entry-level, online college courses for credit in a variety of subjects. They follow a self-paced, independent study approach to online learning. Students can transfer courses taken at StraighterLine to a variety of partner colleges that offer degrees.
 
Pope says that with students facing mounting college debt, the company aims to offer low-cost and low-risk college credit options.
 
CEO Burck Smith founded the company in 2009 after launching Smarthinking, an online tutoring company.
 
 
Source: Steven Pope, marketing manager.
Writer: Alexandra Wilding, [email protected]