It's been 41 years since his graduation; 41 years since he earned his class ring, and he's still wearing it. "I've always worn it. I've had to have it remade a couple of times, and it's pretty worn again. But I still wear it."
He's Harvey Najim '64, CEO and owner of Sirius Computer Solutions, and one of WSU's unsung entrepreneurial heroes. "He's had a great deal of success" says Fran Jabara, former dean of the college of business administration. Members of the Najim and Jabara families have known one another for a very long time. "It's always neat to see one of our students go out of state and achieve this sort of success. He certainly deserves it."
And Jabara isn't the only one to have noticed Najim. He's one of only two people to whom ibm has awarded its Lifetime Achievement Award — who are not lifetime employees of IBM. He and his companies (Sirius and its predecessor, Star Data Systems) have won practically every major award that ibm offers, and many other industry awards as well. Sirius is on track to have its best year ever in 2005, tipping the scales at roughly $600 million in revenue.
"He has always been a treat to work with," says Becky Murphy, an IBM liaison who has worked with Sirius for more than five years. "He has worked hard to evolve his business to match step with IBM. That's one of his greatest assets — he's a change agent."
Najim's ability to change course at just the right moment has been a hallmark of his life. His parents had firm plans for him and his four brothers. "My parents lined us four boys up. I was the oldest, and my parents decided I should be a doctor. The other three would become an engineer, a lawyer and the last would take over the family business. My two middle brothers followed my parent's wishes. I didn't."
He did try. He attended Washington University in St. Louis and enrolled in the pre-med program. "In my second year biology lab," Najim reports, "I passed out while we were dissecting a pig. My professor advised me that if I couldn't get past the pig, I probably wouldn't make a good doctor."
He left Washington University but continued college, spending three semesters at Kansas University and then finishing a degree in mathematics at Wichita University in 1964. "I was in the last class to graduate from Wichita University, before the school entered the state system and became Wichita State University."
Najim enjoyed his classes at WU, but wasn't involved in a lot of other campus activities. He worked as much as 40 hours a week at a local hotel and in the men's department at J.C. Penney. He was active in ROTC, which he enjoyed. The program helped him pay for his education; it also committed him to two years of active duty in the Army. He wasn't called up right away, however. "I started the graduate program in mathematics, completed one semester of work, and then received my orders."
Najim served two years as the assistant chief of data processing at hq Brooke Army Medical Center at Fort Sam Houston. Although he had been aware of computers while in college, this was his first real exposure. And it was this experience that would make one of the more important moments of change in his life.
Najim might have continued in the Army, but he received an intriguing offer from IBM — a position as a systems engineer. In the end, he went to work for IBM, where he found his true career calling as he worked in technical, marketing and managerial roles.
Over the next 13 years, Najim stood out as an exceptional manager. He moved around every couple of years, finally landing in San Antonio. He demonstrated a gift for getting the best out of the people and departments he was managing, and it looked like he had a very bright future with IBM.
But Najim saw an opportunity to take a chance and start his own business, and he took it, founding Star Data Systems in 1980.
Star Data Systems started out as a one-man operation, but as Najim combined his experience and connection with ibm with his business acumen and managerial skills, the business grew quickly. In 1992 the business was renamed Sirius Computer Solutions as it expanded to provide more services. In 1997 he sold off the Star Data Solutions distribution business to Western Micro Technology, while retaining the rest of the company. Today Sirius has 500 employees in 60 locations, more than 2,700 clients and is generating more than half a billion dollars in revenue each year.
Sirius is the first recipient of the ibm On Demand Business Partner award, has earned several IBM Beacon awards and has also won the IBM Business Partner Leadership award for the past seven years.
Selling Change
Sirius has become much more than a reseller of ibm servers and business solutions, although they do that very well. Sirius is the largest reseller of IBM eServers in the world and the largest IBM iSeries and pSeries Solution Provider. A major part of the value Sirius adds to the servers is the training and system design that the engineers, system architects and trainers at Sirius provide.
Najim's leadership and managerial skills are a key part of that success. He's a hands-on manager who makes it a point to spend part of every day looking for ways to let his employees know that their work is appreciated. "Once or twice a day, I walk around and talk with people throughout the company. I'll ask how they're doing and what they're working on. I pass on compliments from their supervisors. I make it a point to know the name of everyone who works for me, to know when their work anniversaries are, whether they're married and have kids, etc. We don't lose many good employees, hardly any at all." And good employees are another one of the hallmarks of Najim's business.
"Harvey has always been an excellent judge of character," says Joe Mertens, executive vice president of Sirius and a partner in the company. Joe himself is an example of Najim's ability to pick the right people.
Mertens started out at Star Data Systems in 1991 as a sales representative. He stayed with the company until the distribution company was sold in 1997. Mertens went with Star Data until 2002 when he returned to Sirius. Mertens is the only other non-employee to receive IBM's Lifetime Achievement Award.
Najim believes that taking the time to hire the right people is fundamental: "When I got ready to start my business, I went to see a man who was a pillar in the business community and asked his advice on how to best build a company. He told me to remember two key things. One, hire good people. Two, hire damn few of them. I have verified his wisdom time and again. It's important to be thoughtful and thorough when hiring people, to insure they'll be good matches for the organization. I've learned from first-hand experience that it's better to have one high performer in a job than three or four so-so performers."
"Harvey has always had the ability to find the right people, put them in the right place, and grow the company," says Mertens.
In one of Sirius' recent marquee projects, the company helped the Golden Nugget casino in Las Vegas replace its entire it backbone — from "ticket-in, ticket-out" slot machines to the databases that run the casino's business, the hotel's business and even e-mail marketing campaigns. They had 18 months to complete the project — Sirius did it in 13. And the transition from one system to the other was completed with no impact on the availability or the performance of the casino's systems.
In a white paper about the project, Dan Ives, Golden Nugget CEO, explains the challenges of the project and the benefits of the horizontally scalable system that Sirius provided. "Our migration was basically like changing the wheels on a bus while it's still moving … Now we have the infrastructure to run any number of similar operations anywhere in the world."
A New Calling
"I've already had all of the business success a person could ask for," says Najim. "I've proven I can be a business leader. I've come to a point where I want to try something else. I want to become a service leader."
Najim, who turns 65 this year, has been thinking a lot about where to go from here. He cites several books as playing key roles in the self-examination leading him to his current plan: "One was Half Time, by Bob Buford. The other was Don't Retire, Rewire, by Jeri Seldar. Together, they've helped me think about what I want the next chapter of my life to be. I want to turn a life of success into a life of significance."
Giving back to the community isn't new to Najim. A member of the board of directors for Junior Achievement and Respite Care of San Antonio, he also has been recognized for his outstanding leadership in campaigning for the United Way of San Antonio and Bexar County, Texas. But now he's looking for a way to make a greater contribution.
Najim has decided that his next big project – when he is finally ready to step aside at Sirius, sell his part of the business and make the leap to the next step – will be philanthropic. "I want to set aside a certain amount to my two daughters, and then I want to create a foundation that I would head," he says. "A lot of it will be to children's groups and children's charities."
For Najim, the relative success of this foundation will depend a great deal on the same sorts of values and leadership that made his entrepreneurial ventures a success. "To succeed as an entrepreneur, you have to be a risk taker. You have to be a visionary. You need to think more strategically. You have to believe." Najim believes those same attributes will be important to the leader of a philanthropic foundation.
"He's been a strong father figure at Sirius," says Murphy. "He's been a great mentor to me, personally. And now he will give his time, talents and treasures back to the community."
"At Sirius we have six core values," relates Najim, as he might to an applicant or a new hire. "First of all, we need to have respect for the individual. We need to have the highest standard for customer service. We need to excel at everything we do. We need to have true partnerships with our suppliers and vendors. We need to have economy in everything we do. And we need to provide some service back to the community."
Those core values have served Harvey Najim well in every chapter of his life. Odds are they'll serve him well as he starts his next one.
