By Ann Luongo
The technology industry is ever-changing. What was once the norm becomes the obsolete almost in the blink of an eye, and staying current on industry changes is more important than ever before.
Pyramid Technology Services, Inc. (PTSI) was founded in 1989 by Joel and Claudia Nimar. It was started to solve problems in the tech industry. At the time, Joel worked for a computer distributor and Claudia worked for a software company. As business partners, as well as spouses, the Nimars’ mission is to provide the best and fastest service possible to their clients.
In those early years, the Nimars had many clients who needed to purchase discontinued products, or refurbished products that were no longer available from the manufacturer. These clients had UL-approved solutions, or solutions that had been vetted by a government agency, and they had to deliver the parts on the specification, and not a replacement part.
“Pyramid provided solutions to these problems,” said Joel. “We also found that a lot of third-party maintenance companies and resellers needed parts as well.” To fill this need, they provided parts to these clients, no matter where they’re located. Pyramid serves clients across the nation and internationally.
“While most of our clients in the past have been large corporations and government agencies, we have started servicing smaller clients in the last couple of years,” said Joel. “We have recently added a Managed Services Provider (MSP) business. We serve as the clients’ internal IT department for companies as small as 10 users. We provide all the higher-level services the big guys enjoy at an affordable price, because the cost is shared among many companies.”
Pyramid prides itself as a one-stop shop. “We are hardware agnostic, so we can recommend the right hardware, software and services solutions for our customers’ businesses. We are not tied to any one manufacturer,” Joel said.
PTSI offers a variety of other services, as well, including hardware maintenance. Whether you have a couple of servers or several 100 computer assets, Pyramid can support your environment including servers, storage and networking equipment. They offer software support, and financial services (leasing, rental and sales) and security services to help protect your IT environment.
Nimar said the company started out only selling Digital Equipment (DEC) hardware. When DEC sold to Compaq and then Compaq sold to HP, Pyramid started supporting those brands. The company now offers dozens of brands of hardware, software and many services, “and the trick is getting them to all work together.”
As a small business with a big reach, Pyramid has less than 10 direct employees, “because we deploy a partner model,” according to Joel. “We oversee partners providing hardware maintenance and installations across the United states and Software Operating System support, as well. Pyramid has been in business for almost 30 years.
“Our entire team brings over 100 years of experience and we have a partner network who are the best in the business,” he said. “We were brought in by Raytheon and ITT to provide a maintenance solution for the Hubbell telescope. We helped implement an IT solution for a community health center in Mattapan, going from a store front to a six-story building that provided medical and dental services to thousands of Boston citizens. We offer repair services that can diagnose problems down to the chip level. Our team comes up with creative solutions to complex business problems.”
In 10 years, he foresees, it will be a much larger organization, helping many more companies improve their processes and become more efficient. “The technology life cycle has gone from three years to six months. This rapid rate of technology change is tough on our customers.”
Joel and Claudia are well known in their communities, and spend as much time as possible giving back and getting involved.
“My wife and I are very community-oriented,” Joel said. Their involvement is almost bottomless, from spending 10 years volunteering at a food pantry to helping to found a new food pantry in a neighboring town. Claudia runs the Cape Cod Theatre Project, which brings Broadway actors and directors to Falmouth.
Joel is also a trustee of Highfield Hall in Falmouth, and works to bring arts, music and culinary classes to the Falmouth community. They are both active supporters of many Falmouth-centered nonprofit organizations.
