As part of our annual Minority-owned Business List, the Business Journal is telling the stories of a handful of companies on the list.
Robert Rodriguez, founder and CEO of technology consulting company Cambria Solutions Inc., sees employees as the company’s greatest asset.
Employees often go to work in client offices armed with laptops, mobile phones and technical skills, providing technology and management consulting services to government agencies and private industry. Cambria works with most of the big-name software and technology platforms, delivering system integration to customers.
Cambria has been on Inc. magazine’s 5,000 Fastest Growing Companies list nine times in its 16 years in business, and Rodriguez said he believes the company could make the list again when the magazine releases its next list in August.
The company has always been focused on growth, continuously offering a growing number of services and expanding its roster of clients, Rodriguez said.
The company promotes its employees, supports them to build leadership skills and offers them competitive compensation, said Rodriguez, adding that Cambria's positive culture enables employees to have good working experiences and therefore stay with the company longer and work harder.
Rodriguez said the company gets a lot of referrals for new hires from its existing employees.
“That is the ultimate sign of employee satisfaction,” he said. “We look highly on that and value it greatly.”
In March the company announced Ki Kim, a longtime employee, as its first chief financial officer.
Retaining and attracting employees is an important consideration in the technology field, where competition for employees can be fierce.
The pandemic created some additional business for Cambria, as many of its clients needed help to transition to remote working environments.
“We were fortunate. We are doing very well. We’re grateful at a time when so many are having a difficult time,” he said.
Cambria ranks near the top of the Sacramento Business Journal’s list of minority-owned businesses, but it’s not something that comes up in the day-to-day business, he said.
“In our industry, technology, a minority designation isn’t that helpful. It’s not as relevant as it can be for other industries,” he said.
Cambria has a 50% gender balance and 39% ethnic diversity balance among its employees, but again, Rodriguez said it’s not something that the company focuses on intentionally.
“We purposely don’t want to be known as a minority-owned company or the most diverse. We want to be known as the best consulting company, and we just happen to be diverse,” he said. “Diversity is important to us. Diversity of thought, diversity of skills, diversity of background.”
Before the pandemic hit, Cambria was completing a new Downtown Sacramento office remodel at the corner of Eighth and K streets. Cambria has the top two floors of the three-story building, and plans call for having a restaurant or two on the ground floor. Work on the building was being wrapped up in February of 2020, just before the pandemic's stay-at-home orders hit the next month.
“We still have not had our open house,” said Rodriguez, who is a partner in the limited partnership that owns the building.
Cambria has been growing revenue on average at 30% for more than a decade, which means the company is doubling every three years. He declined to disclose revenue numbers.
“We’re like a duck. We are calm on top, but we’re paddling furiously under the water,” he said.
The Essentials
Cambria Solutions Inc.
Founded: 2003
CEO: Robert Rodriguez
Employees: 300
Headquarters: Sacramento
2020 revenue: $58.6 million
