Dave Mehrtens, one of three partners of East Stroudsburg-based eLearning provider Right Reason Technologies, was surprised when his company was named as a recipient of an Innovation Award from Ben Franklin Technology Partners of Northeastern Pennsylvania for best Incubator Graduate. Right Reason didn’t experience dramatic growth or boast large revenues.
“I guess a few of those companies are struggling now and we seem to be doing alright,” says Mehrtens, whose company posted a 25 percent increase in revenue last year and has grown to nearly 20 employees.
That’s a nod to the Right Reason’s moderate, controlled growth based around its flagship product, CyberExtension, which targets secondary education and blends advantages of distance education and conventional classrooms to educate non-traditional learners while containing costs. The company’s other proprietary learning management system, Right Track, provides organizations with the ability to deliver and track web-based training among employees.
The company was started with a $500,000 federal grant to provide distance learning solutions for high schools and has been bootstrapped ever since. Right Reason is a 2008 graduate of the East Stroudsburg University Accelerator and will be an anchor tenant in ESU’s expanded incubator, both of which are in the Pocono Mountains Keystone Innovation Zone.
Mehrtens said Right Reason is focusing on a platform that makes eLearning more of an online marketplace, bringing together people who want to sell their intellectual property in the form of web-based trainings and those who think they can sell it.
“We can give them the tools to do it on their own or do it for them,” says Mehrtens. “We’re getting that defined. Now it’s more about making phone calls and cutting deals.”
Right Reason will be honored along with other Innovation Award winners at i xchange 2009 on Tuesday, May 12.
Source: Dave Mehrtens, Right Reasons Technologies
Writer: Joe Petrucci
