From the January 3, 2003 print edition

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Adams dreams big

Kathlyn Adams

Something people don't know about you: "I'm a perfectionist."

It's like a scene from the movies. When Kathlyn Adams was a student at Carver Vocational Technical High School in Baltimore, the National Security Agency tested a group of students to see if they had the right stuff to work for the sophisticated spy agency. Adams, an extremely smart student, studied data processing in school and had what it took.

So in 1980, after graduating from Carver — and while she attended the University of Maryland, College Park — Adams worked the 11:30 p.m. to 7:30 a.m. shift at the NSA.

In 1987, Adams decided to strike out on her own as a consultant on NSA projects. She did that for several years, and then in 2001, she started her own IT services firm called Ross Technologies Inc., which goes by the name RTGX. The firm contracts not only with the Department of Defense, but it also has state and local government and commercial clients.

Adams, whose father died when she was 12, has worked since she was 16 and has an entrepreneurial spirit, so she didn't think twice about starting her own firm.

"It's definitely pressure," Adams said. "But every job you have has pressure. I've worked my whole life. It's not any different. When I set my focus on something, I strive to reach it."

Just one year after starting her firm, the company already has 50 employees. The company moved into an expanded headquarters in Columbia this fall, and Adams has set her sights on doubling the firm's size within the next year and eventually reaching 200 employees.

And it's the employees that Adams attributes most to her success. She scoffs at congratulating herself.

"None of what RTGX has accomplished would have been done without every individual on the team," Adams said. "It's really about the employees."

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