Peak 10's Curtiss starting new venture

Debra Curtiss, who helped build the Tampa office of Peak 10 into a local data storage power, has left the firm to re-launch her own company.

The move is bittersweet, Curtiss says. “I'm at the point where I'm ready to go,” she tells Coffee Talk, “but I have mixed emotions about leaving my team.”

Curtiss is one of the leaders of the tight-knit Tampa-area technology community. She won the Tampa Bay Technology Forum's 2010 Outstanding Leadership Award late last year, in an event sponsored by the Business Review. Curtiss is a past chairwoman of the organization. (See Business Review, Nov. 19.)

Curtiss took over Peak 10's Tampa operations in 2003, when the firm, with 18 centers spread across 10 cities in the Midwest and the Southeast, struggled to get traction locally. A former executive with Verizon in Tampa, Curtiss rebuilt the staff and redefined its focus. The Tampa office grew significantly under Curtiss, to the point where it was the second biggest in the firm.

But the entrepreneurial lure was too enticing. Curtiss will be going back to her website and data firm, Options Consulting, which has been dormant since she took the Peak 10 job. Says Curtiss: “I've got a lot of work to do to reestablish this company.”