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With an economic recovery blowing against their backs, a number of Indianapolis-area companies saw growth slingshot ahead in 2010. Technology was a common field for this year’s list of fastest-growing private companies.

Three years ago, after being a longtime technology subcontractor, Creative Solutions Consulting Inc.—better known as CSCI—secured its first prime contract with the federal government. It was a business intelligence contract through the Business Transformation Agency, whose goal is to improve the Department of Defense’s business processes, systems and investment governance.

“That helped us,” said President and founder Michele Meyer, whose company specializes in IT consulting. “It’s given us confidence in ourselves and our own ability, as well as getting our reputation out there. Our biggest marketing tool is our reputation, and all the seeds we’ve planted in prior years are starting to become viable.”

Since CSCI’s primary client has been the federal government, the opportunity to branch out couldn’t have come at a better time. Although CSCI continues to grow at a rapid rate, Meyer said it could have done even better.

“We are absolutely facing obstacles this year with some of the DOD budget cuts,” said Meyer, whose company was No. 1 on IBJ’s list of fastest-growing private companies in 2010. “In the last two years, we have been facing these obstacles. Our growth would have been bigger, if not for the insourcing program the federal government did,” which took work from contractors and moved it inside the government’s own operations.

In the process, Meyer said, the government hired away more than 20 CSCI employees last year.

But Meyer sees reason for optimism. She said CSCI is starting to market to Fort Knox, Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Ohio and the Crane Naval Surface Warfare Center in southwestern Indiana.

And CSCI now has 21 employees doing consulting work for the state of Indiana, a trend that started in 2010. In January 2011, CSCI earned its first prime contract with the state, working for the Department of Transportation.

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