It’s been a good few months for TiTi McNeill, the president and chief executive of TranTech Inc., an Alexandria, Va.-based software developer whose clients primarily are government agencies.

In May, McNeill won the Women in Technology’s annual Leadership Award, which she describes as being akin to a lifetime achievement accolade. And last month, she was named Ernst & Young’s Entrepreneur of the Year in the Emerging Government Services category.

All this seems a world away from the day she arrived in the United States in 1975 from war-torn Vietnam with $10 in her pocket.

McNeill, who’d worked for IT&T in South Vietnam, was offered the opportunity to come to America, initially for about six months. Her family encouraged her to go, thinking she would return when the postwar situation resolved itself. She took along her 13-year-old sister, leaving behind her parents and six other siblings.

After working as a keypunch operator and going to Northern Virginia Community College at night, she found a job with Value Systems and Engineering Inc. in Alexandria.

“That’s where I got my first programming job,” she said. At the same time, she continued her education, completing a bachelor’s and a master’s degree at American University.

By 1987, she was an independent Oracle software consultant, and a budding entrepreneur with a vision. “I put in long hours at no [extra] charge, and always cared about everything. I always tried to learn more,” she said. “So it dawned on me, if I’m going to work this hard, I may as well work for myself.”

In December 1989, she incorporated as TranTech, with a small office in Alexandria — all the while continuing to work as a consultant. “It was not until 1994 that I quit consulting to run the company full time,” she said, “because by that time I had about six people working for me.”

McNeill called that step “a huge risk,” but added quickly, “I was so adamant about the company, I didn’t look back.”
There was no need to. In 2000, TranTech’s revenue reached $20 million and the company now has about 150 employees. She readily admits to putting in 14- or 16-hour days all week, every week.

“I have a major commitment to myself, to my company, to my people,” she explained. “You just cannot work a little bit and go home and say que sera sera about what is happening tomorrow. You’ve got to get it done, you’ve got to make sure that your clients aren’t disappointed. You can promise [customers] a lot of things, but you’ve got to stay awake and make it happen.”

McNeill is not ready to rest on her laurels.

“I have a long, long way to go yet,” she said. “My short-term goal is by the end of 2003, I want to reach as close to $50 million in revenue as I can. I think it’s a long shot, probably more than likely [we’ll reach] $40 million. But I think if I set the goal higher than what I expect, I might just reach it.”