The Minnesota Spokesman-Recorder, the oldest minority-owned business in Minnesota, profiled two Ohio University alumni in an article “Keystone Computer Solution: preparing youth of color for IT professions. Couple says creating future leaders is ‘the right thing to do.”
Joseph Richburg ’72 and Dorothy Richburg ’73 both graduated from the College of Arts & Sciences and eventually put their math and computer science expertise to use in founding their own business.
The Richburgs, Joe and Dorothy, have extensive experience with a large number of large local corporations. Between the two, they have worked for Pillsbury, Control Data, 3M, and the Federal Reserve Bank in various capacities.
That lasted until the time, as Joe Richburg describes it, that “The light came on. Working for somebody else means you are always at their beck and call, and you will never be truly independent and free; you will never realize your potential working for someone else.”
That realization led to the couple founding Keystone Computer Solutions, Inc. Dorothy, originally from Washington, DC, and Joe, from Philadelphia, had met at Ohio University in Athens, Ohio, where they both had focused their studies on mathematics and computer science. After graduating, they both had job offers in the Twin Cities: Dorothy with 3M and Joe with Pillsbury.
Joe told MSR that after they started having kids, Dorothy wanted more flexibility schedule-wise and that her skills with computers allowed her to become an independent contractor and work her own schedule. Eventually Dorothy realized, as she put it, that “I’m finding a lot of opportunities; why am I just giving them away? I should probably think about pursuing a professional staffing firm, where I can couple those candidates with those opportunities.”
The realizations — epiphanies, as Joe puts it — led the couple to found Keystone Computer Solutions, or KCS, as it is now known.
Comments