When I first interviewed David Burke it was after he left Western Star Trucks as CFO when the company was sold. He had purchased a new business venture almost immediately. Vadim,  was a software company started in the 90s with offices in the Rutland area. This was a new venture and challenge for the executive.

This is my interview with David at the company headquarters of Stardyne Technologies at the Landmark Centre In Kelowna.

When I started out with Vadim the company was just serving municipalities and government.  Over the years and through some opportunities that became available, we moved into education. There is a total of thirteen companies in our group and the overall headquarters of the operation is here in Kelowna.

From that beginning in Vadim, which we purchased in 2001, we now have companies on either side of the border and employ 320 people with 70 of them located here at head office in the Landmark Centre complex. My partner is well known businessman Terry Peabody who was the man who saved Western Star trucks many years ago and built the truck line into a sought after vehicle in the trucking industry.

In our business StarDyne Technologies Inc, a private company, we have offices in Surrey, BC; Kelowna, BC; Mission, BC; Vancouver, BC; Edmonton, AB; Orillia, ON; Markham, ON; Grimsby, ON; Cambridge, ON; Beaverton, OR; Flint, MI; St. Albert, AB; and Scottsdale, AZ.

Since that beginning with Vadim they have acquired StarDyne Pacific Alliance Technologies Inc. (March 2008); SRB Education Solutions Inc. (April 2006); Tempest Development Group Inc. (July 2005); Diamond Software Inc. (April 2003); Vadim Computer Management Group Ltd. (March 2001)

SRB acquires Management Information Group Ltd. (May 2010); L4U - Kelowna Software Ltd. (August 2008); StudentsAchieve Software Inc. (May 2008); TSC Software Services Inc. (January 2007).

Diamond acquires WorkTech Inc. (September 2006); CompuPower Systems Ltd. (July 2003).

Vadim Software acquires Versyss Commercial Systems (Municipal Division) (Jan 2005); Top Down Logic Corp. (Jan 2003)

We knew from the beginning that customer service was the key to this business and we have done everything to make that and we thrive on our ability to meet those standards through this group of companies.

The StarDyne group of companies works to maximize their growth potential while preserving their individual brand identities. They operate independently from each other — in some instances they compete in the same market, in others, they are complementary.

After eighteen months in the business we liked this industry, saw the future and decided that we would add companies to the group and we knew we had to be good at it and we do believe in employee customer satisfaction. We knew there were small companies all over North America that would fit our philosophy and we could bring them under our umbrella and start to build a bigger entity. That is what happened. These companies are always different but they are in the software service business and serve over 500 local governments and two hundred and twenty five local school districts, comprising of 6,800 schools. This group does $40 million in revenue with half of that coming from service and customer satisfaction.

Photo: Contributed

Government Solutions

•  Vadim Software
•  Diamond Software
•  WorkTech
• Tempest Development Group
• Pacific Alliance Technologies

Photo: Contributed

Education Solutions

• SRB East
• SRB West
• StudentsAchieve
• L4U - Kelowna Software
• MIG

Each of these entities stands on their own and they have made other acquisitions since they started and have just rolled them underneath. The company has a division that is always on the look out for new companies they can bring into the Stardyne Technologies Group to complement there continued service approach to the business.