"I fell in love with computers early on and knew that was what I wanted to do the first time I stayed up all night writing a program on this little, tiny computer that had 2K memory and no storage device, so as soon as you ran the program it was gone forever," said Yoder, president and founder of Advanced Information Systems (AIS), an IT solutions company. "I stayed up until I ran out of memory, and I never got to run that program, but I knew I was hooked. I was lost."

Yoder, who has a degree in computer science, also has the entrepreneurial bug, which he inherited from his father, who owned myriad businesses from a mortgage brokerage to a bakery to a Christmas tree lot.

"I guess I've got it in my blood because I have always thought that someday I would start something up," said Yoder, who went on to successfully merge his penchant for computers with his inherent propensity for entrepreneurship.

He founded AIS in Virginia Beach, Va., in 1987, just one year after graduating. The company's original focus was contract programming, which entailed custom software development and building programs. Since then, AIS has diversified its services in keeping with the fast pace of the information technology field, and has grown from a fledgling solo operation to an established local industry leader with 21 employees.

But Yoder admitted the system has crashed a few times along the way. In fact, AIS may never have come to fruition in the first place if Yoder hadn't befallen an unfortunate turn of events that changed the course of his career.

"I worked for a software development company and I was part owner, but I wasn't happy with the direction the company was going so I started looking around to leave," he said. "They caught wind of it so they let me go. It's the one time I have ever been fired, so that was the catalyst. I had wanted to do my own thing anyway, but I was kind of forced into it, and that was one of the hardest times in my life. We were a one-income family and I had a wife and two kids. But it's a good testament that sometimes when one door closes another door opens because if I wouldn't have gotten fired, I would have not taken the chance."

Yoder's decision to found AIS was further fortified by the contract work he did in the six months after he lost his job - he said he made more money than he had in the previous year. So he launched the company for "essentially nothing," borrowing some cash from his father to help with living expenses. By the end of the first month, the company was self-sufficient, Yoder was out of debt and AIS had secured quite a bit of contract work.

Then Yoder broke one of the cardinal rules of business: His first hire was his younger brother Mike Yoder, who also studied computers in college and initially came on board as a programmer.

"The age-old advice is not to go into business with your family members, but Mike and I have been in business for 20 years now, and we complement each other," Yoder said. "He is grounded and conservative and I am the visionary, so he keeps me from taking unnecessary risks at times and I encourage him to stretch a little."

Mike Yoder and Jeff Robinson are now co-owners of the company, which Frank Yoder relocated to Las Vegas in 1996 to take advantage of superior air transportation, proximity to technology centers and the favorable cost of living. AIS now encompasses three divisions, including custom software development; voice and data networks, which includes broadband solutions; and professional services. The company is experiencing fast-paced growth in its professional services and voice and data networks divisions. Yoder said AIS is the only local certified reseller for Interactive Intelligence VoIP solutions CIC and Vonexus, and is also at the forefront of Computer Telephony Integration technology.

"We are trying to rebrand ourselves because people know us as the software guys, but we are also experts in VoIP, especially for contact centers," Yoder said.

Advanced Information Systems works with corporations in industries such as telecommunications, financial services, manufacturing, insurance and banking.

Global Cash Access, which provides cash access products and related services to more than 1,000 gaming properties and other clients worldwide, has been an AIS customer for nearly two years, according to Tedd Brandes, telecom manager for the company.

"AIS is our contract vendor for Interactive Intelligence, and they have done some Automated Interactive Voice Response and we're moving into the VoIP world," Brandes said. "They are our vendor of choice."

Brandes said he appreciates the personal attention he receives from AIS employees.

"When you start dealing in new technology, I like having someone I can talk to," he said. "In fact, I had a problem last night and I called Frank this morning and he will be here within the hour. It's nice to have someone who will just drive over and give you a hand."

Brandes added that he has referred the company to business colleagues and will continue to do so.

Although business is booming for AIS these days, Yoder said, each industry has its cyclical downturns. In the case of the technology sector, a crippling setback occurred when the dot-com bubble burst in 2000.

"We were going gangbusters and had 30 employees in 1999 and that was when the dot-com boom was happening," Yoder said. "But in about 2000 the era ended and went bust, and that affected us because we were doing programming, and if IT budgets dried up we didn't get any work. In 2003, we had seven employees, and Mike took a second mortgage and I actually had to sell my house. We went through some really hard times and we sacrificed our own personal wealth and financial stability in order to make payroll, which we have never missed. There were times we didn't think we would survive but we made it, and now we are very much on the upswing. In the last 12 months we've hired six people."

AIS has also doubled in gross revenue since last year, and will gross about $5 million in 2007, according to Yoder, who attributes the company's growth spurt to diversification. Customer service is also of paramount importance in running a successful business, as any entrepreneur should know.

"One of the things we have done is always place the customer first," he said. "Larger corporations that have hundreds or thousands of employees are not able to do what smaller companies can do, which is to pay close attention to the needs of the customer. My advice first and foremost would be to always make sure the customer is happy and satisfied with the products or services your company is delivering because then you will get a good reputation and word-of-mouth will spread about your business and your business will grow."