Edaptive Systems, LLC

In 1999, Frank Blair, Mike Keck, and Jack B. launched BKB Data Systems, an IT consulting company specializing in custom software development, in a small 1 room Fells Point apartment, or should we say e-partment. Jack left the company less than a year later, and then BKB weathered the dot com bubble, Y2K scares, and economic downturns thanks to frugal minds at the company’s helm, while doing work for companies including John Deere.

In 2008, the company name was changed to Edaptive Systems. During the dot com technology rush, companies saw great success by adding “e” and/or “.com” to their names. Deciding that BKB was not the best to represent the new partnership, especially since “B” #2 left years before, the guys made pages of possibilities for their new company name. Adaptive Systems, and all its variants, were already taken, but with a minor vowel change the guys chose Edaptive Systems, and Paul started work on the new logo.

That same year, a contact in the industry contacted Frank about bidding on PMBR at The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Servces (CMS), still Edaptive’s largest contract to date, and the guys start a mad dash to get the company CMMI Maturity Level 2 certified in advance of the award date. It’s a good thing they were well organized already!

In 2009, Edaptive wins PMBR, at award a $65M contract and now nearly $140M, which quadruples the size of the company from 12 employees to 48 almost overnight and begins the 5+ year run of aggressive hiring and growth. But things weren’t all peachy during this initial rapid growth. With the apartment lease up and the company’s first major contract win, the guys moved everyone out of the city and into Class A, award-winning office space in Owings Mills. Unfortunately, the funding from CMS for furniture and computers wasn’t finished in time for the new office move and for a while there, all new hires were required to bring their own laptops to work. Frank hooked up telephones while Paul hooked up computers and most employees had to work on Home Depot poker tables and folding chairs! Once the CMS funding came through, employees got to take the poker tables and chairs home, and now we have some of the best IT in Baltimore.

Since then, it’s been nothing but up. 300+ new employees later, the company is a well-established and stable presence in the Healthcare IT space, building custom systems and software for many divisions of The U.S. Department of Health & Human Services. Come join us, and help us bring these Federal agencies into the modern age of web-based transactions with the public. Great software makes for a great healthcare system!