How Bruce Lehrman had an idea and ran with it

Bruce Lehrman has always had an entrepreneurial bent, although he may have expressed it in more basic terms growing up.

“I really do believe from early days I was figuring out ways to make money to pay for college and all of those things,” Lehrman, 56, said one recent morning. “It was really natural for me to start a new company.”

Those earliest days came on the family farm east of Cedar Rapids.

“Corn, beans, cattle,” Lehrman said. “I tell people all the time my first recollection is working on a farm.”

His first experience starting a new company came a few years after Lehrman’s 1989 graduation from Iowa State University with a marketing degree. He and Jeff Quint, who’d founded Cedar Ridge Distillery in 2005, started software company LIVEware5 in 1996.

“It did streaming media technology back in the early days of that,” Lehrman said. “It was both of our first experiences with entrepreneurship.”

When the partners sold LIVEware5 to Cedar Rapids-based telecommunications provider McLeod USA in 2000, Lehrman went along to become McLeod’s vice president for data products.

Emerging technology

Developing LIVEware5 drew on Lehrman’s other natural aptitude for emerging technology.

“I’ve always been a good math-science guy,” he said. “That was the Wild West of the tech emergence and the internet startups.”

After two years at McLeod, Lehrman took his expertise to RuffaloCODY as chief information officer.

His experience there with the still-developing online economy got him thinking about data centers, the physical plant where a business or organization houses its critical data and applications. A data center includes the servers, routers, switches, firewalls, storage systems and controllers to secure and deliver online functions.

“We put all of our servers in the very first data center in Palo Alto,” California, Lehrman said. “I liked the business side and could really see a lot of opportunity for growth and development.”

So in January 2006, Lehrman launched Covault to provide data center services from Cedar Rapids as area companies ramped up and solidified their online operations. In 2007, he merged Covault with another provider to create Involta.

“It started off in Cedar Rapids, working with some of the local businesses,” he said. “That just got us to a point where we said, ‘If we can do this in Cedar Rapids, we can do this in other markets. We can take our show on the road.’ ”

Lehrman found prospective customers liked having their data centers nearby, leading to a national network of Involta facilities.

“It’s a good fit,” he said. “The opportunity to have data centers close by wherever your businesses are is a really good market. We’re operating in multiple states across the country now, and we see the opportunity to continue to grow.”

Disaster recovery

The company’s Cedar Rapids beginnings contributed Involta’s development and expertise in other ways. The company’s first data center was housed in a downtown building when the flood of June 2008 happened.

“We had 10 feet of water rushing by our data center,” Lehrman recalled. “We were the only internet provider left downtown.”

Recognizing the need to maintain online communication during a natural disaster, law enforcement allowed Involta staff to install portable generators and transport fuel for them through the skyway bridges.

“We kept that capability,” Lehrman said. “We kept everything up and running, and that was the main thing.”

The experience contributed to Involta’s expertise in disaster recovery. In 2017, the company purchased space in the Depot in the NewBo neighborhood, allowing for the company’s continued growth farther from the Cedar River.

250 employees

Involta, which now employs just over 250 people nationwide, continues to focus on manufacturing, health care and financial service enterprises, the basis for its early success.

“Mid-sized to large organizations have always been our sweet spot,” Lehrman said. “We find organizations that look like the ones we’ve been successful with in the past.”

It can take some convincing for customers to turn their critical information and operations over to a contractor, a process that became easier as Involta built its reputation.

“It’s a big decision for organizations,” Lehrman said. “A lot of them have had their own data centers and their own facilities. To trust somebody else with that equipment and those facilities can be a leap of faith. Our track record and our reliability really helps us win the day.”

Demand for Involta’s services grew as employers and workers navigate post-pandemic hybrid work routines.

“The needs of people for remote work continued to grow through that time,” Lehrman said of 2020.

‘Pretty busy’

Involta’s growth attracted attention. Inc. Magazine named it the nation’s second-fastest-growing IT company in 2010, and 40th-fastest-growing overall.

The company’s growing recognition in turn attracted the attention of the Carlyle Group asset management and financial services corporation. Carlyle, a global investment firm, bought Involta in June 2022, and Lehrman shifted from CEO to vice chairman of the board.

In Lehrman’s case, that means more than showing up at board meetings. He stays on top of day-to-day operations.

“It’s pretty busy,” he said in late November. “There’s a lot going on. We have a lot of things happening. I was in Tucson and Boise last week to see our facilities there, the week before in Ohio and Pennsylvania. We’ll be in Iowa and Minnesota next week.”

Helping others

Lehrman now splits his time between St. Petersburg, Fla., and Cedar Rapids.

But he remains closely involved with board membership on Corridor companies Van Meter Industrial and Coralville-based Higher Learning Technologies and entrepreneurial support organizations such as NewBoCo, the Entrepreneurial Development Center, Technology Association of Iowa, Iowa Seed Fund and the Cedar Rapids Metro Economic Alliance.

“I had a lot of support from a lot of mentors, helping me get started,” he said. “It’s important to have a good healthy entrepreneurial environment that’s creating that next generation of businesses in town.”

Such efforts continue to nurture the region’s economy.

“I think it’s easier today to raise capital,” Lehrman said. “People, at least in the Cedar Rapids area and the Iowa region, tend to be more supportive of entrepreneurs. It wasn’t thought of as a good career choice, back in the day.”

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