CompTIA Acquires TechAmerica to Expand State, International Efforts, Says CEO
CompTIA acquired TechAmerica, the information technology trade groups said in Monday news releases. CompTIA will continue to use the TechAmerica name for certain advocacy efforts and is to absorb 24 TechAmerica staffers -- “all the core staff that are delivering all the programs they're currently doing,” said CompTIA CEO Todd Thibodeaux, who will retain his position, in an interview. TechAmerica CEO Shawn Osborne will help with the coming transition, but will not take on a new role with CompTIA, Thibodeaux said. The CompTIA board will fill its last vacant slot with a to-be-determined member of the TechAmerica board, Thibodeaux said.
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The acquisition “gives us a chance to broaden our scope,” Thibodeaux said. CompTIA will expand its efforts in three main areas -- state lobbying, government procurement and international activities -- using TechAmerica’s expertise, he told us. “We have represented mostly small and medium companies in the IT channel,” he said. “By adding in what we feel is a non-overlapping, non-duplicative set of members and set of programs, it allows us to really be a full representative for the IT industry."
IRS filings show TechAmerica’s spending outpaced its revenue between 2009 and 2011, the last year for which documents were available from the GuideStar database of Form 990s. Last year saw multiple reports of employees leaving the company, and documents obtained by the Huffington Post in October revealed at least 75 members had withdrawn from the group since July (http://huff.to/1kFPFlc). “Any time organizations today are dependent entirely on dues, it’s a challenging environment,” Thibodeaux said. TechAmerica did not comment.
In November, four TechAmerica lobbyists quit en masse to work for the rival group Information Technology Industry Council (ITI) (CD Nov 6 p15), leading to TechAmerica filing a poaching lawsuit, which was settled confidentially Friday, said statements from Osborne (http://bit.ly/1pXVD8a) and ITI CEO Dean Garfield (http://bit.ly/SiiSLq). The suit “had nothing to do with” TechAmerica’s decision to reach agreement with CompTIA, said Thibodeaux. The two sides hashed out “the bulk” of the agreement over the past two months, he added. “We'll open cooperation with ITI and welcome it with open arms."
CompTIA’s main revenue base is its information technology certification program, not membership dues, providing a stable source of funding for TechAmerica’s programs, Thibodeaux said. The deal “was more an opportunity for them to see the programs they had developed and put in place have a more definite, certain future,” he said.
CompTIA has spread its lobbying base, according to lobbying disclosure forms. Its Q1 year-over-year lobbying spending rose between $20,000 and $90,000 each year since a 2010 Q1 low of $20,000, reaching $200,000 in 2014. The group’s Q1 2014 form (http://1.usa.gov/1kPSK3P) also lists dozens of issues, some of which -- including net neutrality -- did not appear in the Q1 2013 form.
Two federal procurement bills also appear on the most recent disclosure form that dovetail with issues that TechAmerica’s acquisition will help with, Thibodeaux told us. The Federal Information Technology Savings, Accountability, and Transparency Act of 2013 (S-1843), and its companion Federal Information Technology Acquisition Reform Act (HR-1232), would give agency chief information officers more authority over IT procurement. “We haven’t been heavily involved in government procurement and public sector issues other than workforce-related things relative to our own sales of IT certifications,” Thibodeaux said. CompTIA is hoping to change that with its TechAmerica acquisition, he said.
At the state level, CompTIA’s alliance of state and regional technology associations “will now move forward under the TechAmerica banner,” Thibodeaux said. Previously, it was called TechVoice. Tax issues and differing data privacy regulations are central issues CompTIA will weigh in on, he said. “Privacy issues and differences across those [state] divides are important to understand and simplify,” he said. Lobbying forms from recent quarters also show CompTIA works on the Marketplace Fairness Act (S-743/HR-684), which would authorize state governments to collect sales taxes from retailers with no physical presence in the state, such as e-tailers.
TechAmerica’s international footprint -- the organization has offices in Brussels -- will let CompTIA enter the worldwide debate, according to Thibodeaux. He said CompTIA will become more involved in the cross-border data flow conversations and related trade negotiations. Europe also leads the global conversation on workforce issues, he said. “We want to get back involved in Brussels in helping to define some of the things around IT workforce in the European space,” said Thibodeaux. “The rest of the world takes a lot of lead -- sometimes more lead -- from what happens in the EU than they do from what happens in the U.S. on workforce in particular. So it’s important for us to be involved there.”