Over the last three years, dallas-based Pinnacle Technical Resources has grown 1,025 percent, ranking it no. 78 on Inc. Magazine’s list of 500 fastest-growing U.S. companies. Pinnacle provides IT solutions for the Fortune 500 crowd, has more than 600 employees, and pulled in $30.5 million in 2004 alone. CEO Nina Vaca founded the company in 1996 when she was 25 years old.
Age: 34
Title/Company: CEO, Pinnacle Technical Resources Inc.
Tenure: 10 years this October
What was your first job? Working at my father’s travel agency putting stickers on bus passes at the age of 10.
What was your worst job? I never really disliked any of my jobs, but taking computerized portraits of people at the local swap meet might have been the oddest.
If you couldn’t say “the people I work with,” what would you say is the best part of your job? Knowing that everything around me started from scratch and is the result of the hard work of so many dedicated people.
What’s the worst part? The rat-on-a-treadmill barrage of e-mails I get everyday.
On weekends, where would people find you? Somewhere between the dirty diapers, e-mails, contracts, and ballet classes, you might catch me at a local dive for our ritual “pizza night” with the family.
What book is currently on your nightstand? An assembly of best-seller children’s books, Fit Pregnancy magazine, and business strategy books.
What’s your favorite TV show? What’s television? With a husband, soon-to-be four kids, and a business to run, who has the time?
What’s your most treasured possession? My husband. Everything in life worth having is free.
What’s your biggest regret? Not marrying him sooner.
What three web sites do you visit most often? My three closest competitors.
What’s the best advice anyone ever gave you? Engraved in my memory are my grandmother’s words of advice: “Aprende a vivir sola.” It translates to: “Learn to live on your own.” In other words, become an independent, self-confident, self-made woman. Today I live by those words.
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