Hermant Mainthia always dreamed of being his own boss. Even with a lucrative career — where he spent 25 years at NASA Glenn Research Center as a consultant and civil servant — Mainthia wanted to put his mechanical engineering education toward an entrepreneurial endeavor.
"It's been a lifelong goal," Mainthia says. "I've been dreaming about having my own business since childhood."
So, in 1996, he combined that entrepreneurial itch with his affinity for NASA and founded Mainthia Technologies in Middleburg Heights. The company services NASA locations in five states, providing facilities operations, as well as maintenance and safety quality control.
Although the company provides technical services to clients such as BFGoodrich, Boeing, Honeywell and the Northeast Ohio Sewer District, Mainthia is also tasked with helping to keep NASA safe and functional — both on the ground and in space. The company provides operations, maintenance and engineering services necessary to run major equipment; safety and risk management; quality assurance; configuration management; IT consulting and management; among other services. The company even provides support for parts and logistics on the International Space Station.
Mainthia's engineering knowledge and business sense have helped the company grow over the past 11 years. "We've been growing at least 20 percent a year over the past five years," says Mainthia, noting that sales revenues are up to $25 million. Employee growth has been steady as well. The company has almost 300 employees in various locations — 85 of whom are in the Middleburg Heights corporate headquarters.
While Mainthia may be the engineering gearhead in charge, he says his employees are really the heart of the company and credits most of the company's success to them. He lives by a lesson he learned when he was young. "My dad told me a long time ago, ‘You can do anything in the world, you just can't do it alone,'" he recalls. "And I have good people around me and I set goals high."
Despite his ever-growing success, Mainthia is quick to acknowledge that there have been obstacles along the way. "There are always challenges in any business. Sometimes, in contractual matters, some of the companies don't keep their promises and don't give us the appropriate share of our work," he says. "We try to avoid these issues by making good decisions. We like to work with ethical people and we go by the books."
Mainthia expects his company to continue growing over the next few years. "Our hopes for the future are that [we will] be a $100 million company in the next five years," he says. "That's our goal and we're certainly looking forward to that."
Until then, Mainthia focuses on enjoying the sense of accomplishment of owning his own successful business. "I can't wait to get out and do what I do, because I love what I do," he says. "Every day is a different day — I never have to go to the same old boring job."