AUSTINTOWN, Ohio – Justin White’s work ethic and entrepreneurial edge emerged at a young age.

His mother, Michelle White, witnessed it when Justin was a teenager, eager for his first job. Several years later, the two launched Advanced Technology Partners, which they co-own. Justin is the CEO of the Austintown company, and Michelle is president. 

“I had kind of just gotten inspired to start my own thing,” Justin explains.

Michelle says Justin wanted to have his own business from the time he graduated. He was exposed as a child to entrepreneurship. Michelle started several enterprises while her children were young, so she could earn income while raising them. 

“He was always a worker,” Michelle says of her son. “As soon as he turned 16, he was like, ‘I want a job.’”

Justin worked at a movie theater through high school and into college.

Early Start

During college, he started working as an intern with Michelle in information technology for a group of manufacturing companies.

When Justin talked about starting a business, Michelle cautioned about the added responsibility and how it differs from being an employee. You don’t wrap up a shift and finish for the day, she warned.

“We would have these talks and he’d be like, ‘Mom, I know, and I have all this time and I’m young and I can work,’” Michelle recalls.

After completing his internship, Justin worked as a software developer, help desk technician and system administrator at the company where his mother was the IT director. That’s when the idea for ATP was born.

“I thought, ‘You know what? What can we do next?’” Justin remembers.

He talked to Michelle and to the owners of the business they worked for about taking the IT department and spinning it off into a business. The pair would continue to provide IT services for that company but also offer them to others. 

“So, we started those conversations in early 2018 and by October, we were able to launch the company with four people at the time,” he says.

Justin was 24.

Besides his entrepreneurial spirit, his interest in technology started when he was young too.

“When I was 16, my birthday gift was buying the components to build my first computer,” he says.

Michelle brought home computers from her company and Justin started playing on them, eventually working to diagnose and troubleshoot their problems. 

“And once you get it fixed, you got that feeling of satisfaction, so it was always an interest of mine,” he explains. 

By the time he graduated from McDonald High School, he knew he wanted to start a business. Justin earned a degree in information technology at Youngstown State University.

In ATP’s early days, the company focused on securing new clients and establishing its credibility. It proved challenging as some companies felt uneasy about entrusting IT services to a startup and questioned ATP’s longevity.

A Break

But about eight months later, the owners caught a break.

“We had the opportunity to purchase a company called Directed Technologies out of Poland,” Justin White explains.

The founders of that 30-year-old company, family friends of the Whites, wanted to retire and reached out to them. That company boasted a long history and a healthy list of clients. The Whites viewed the purchase as an exciting opportunity.

“It really helped us to establish that trust in the market that let us grow from there,” he says.

And the company remains on an upward trajectory. About 115 clients are on managed service contracts with ATP. It also employs 18 people with plans to hire more. For managed service contracts, ATP fixes broken computers, implements preventative maintenance schedules, ensures systems are updated and secure, and provides quality software and training.  

“Really, the core is we’re an outsourced IT department so anything that you could think of that an IT department would handle, that’s what ATP would do,” Justin says. 

The company considers itself an IT department for companies at a fraction of the cost. “We want people to think of us as a full service IT department,” he says.

And technology is ever evolving. He points to cybersecurity and artificial intelligence as two challenges.

Human error complicates cybersecurity.

“I like to say, if you hand the keys to the car to someone, they can get into the car very easily,” Justin continues. “You could put the locks on it, you could make sure the keys are locked up. But if you take the keys out of the lockbox and hand them to someone, aka give them your password and credentials by mistake, then there’s not much you can do to protect against that.”

AI poses a challenge as many companies try to figure out the best way to use it to optimize their operations and ATP facilitates those discussions to determine the best way the technology can add value.

Besides increasing its client base and number of employees, ATP has added White family members too.

Justin’s younger sister, Jordyn, worked behind the scenes while she was in college, handling administrative duties. About a year ago. She became ATP’s full-time office and marketing coordinator.

“She is in the community,” Justin says. “She is helping people kind of get to know the brand of ATP better. She’s working with a lot of local nonprofits to bring ATP to them but also help support them. And she handles all of our marketing, all of our office management in-house here.”

Supporting the Community

Community is important to ATP’s owners as well. When it acquired Directed Technologies, that company was providing a discount to its nonprofit clients. After a short discussion, ATP opted to continue that.

“We’ve kind of taken that and built in the idea that when we are working with nonprofits, we want to make it as cost effective and affordable as possible to help support the community,” Justin says. 

ATP also sponsors community organizations and events. 

“I guess it comes down to living here, being here, having my kids grow up here,” Justin says. “…So, what we’re trying to do is make sure we’re helping support the community that we’re living in, playing in and growing in. It’s just important to us that we’re doing our part to help improve it for the future and for now.”

The family considers the future a lot. Michelle believes her son may one day start another business, but she says he’ll remain with ATP.

“I don’t ever see him stepping away from this,” she says. We’ve agreed that we want this to be like a family legacy. We want to continue to serve the community.”

Pictured at top: Justin White is the CEO and co-owner of Advanced Technology Partners in Austintown, Ohio.