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MORGANTOWN - Jon Hammock, co-founder and president of KeyLogic Systems Inc., is out to give West Virginia a good name in information technology.
A Parkersburg native and first-generation college graduate, Hammock paid his way through West Virginia University through loans and jobs: work study. telemarketing, even working 30 hours a week providing nighttime security at a coal mine.
Finding a lack of high-tech jobs in the state when he graduated in 1988, Hammock took his computer science degree to Westinghouse in South Carolina. There he reversed his earlier pattern, working days and going to school at nights and on weekends to earn an MBA at the University of South Carolina with a focus on finance and strategic management.
When Hammock was ready to move on in 1995, he got two offers in West Virginia.
"Boing! The market had changed," he said. "And the state had changed and it was a great place to come back to."
In four years as vice president and chief financial officer of Marada Corp., a small information technology (IT) company in Fairmont, Hammock helped the company grow from 13 to 40 employees.
But he had his own ideas about IT, and in 1999 he struck out with partner Cary...