Charles Gardner, Sterling Ideas President & Senior Service Delivery Engineer: “Since 1999, we’ve helped our clients implement technology solutions to strengthen their companies.”

Charles and Joann Gardner incorporated Sterling Ideas Inc on June 30, 1999, but its real history started much earlier than that. Charles’ interest in computers began at an early age. His father taught him not to be afraid of taking something apart to look at it. Even as a preschooler, Charles would sit on his father’s lap and “help” take apart cameras, examine the pieces, and put them back together again. A few years later, his mother surprised him with his first computer, a TRS-80. Then, like almost every child in the 80’s, he had a Commodore-128 for gaming. As Charles grew up, so did the technological world, and he saw the potential of the computer industry to not only provide for his young family but also help businesses thrive. This permission to examine and explore, lovingly given by his parents, sparked an entrepreneurial spirit within Charles that never left him.

That spirit had to wait, however. As a young husband and new father, Charles worked for several large, reputable companies to make ends meet. Then, in the summer of 1999, he decided it was the right time to start his own business, and it seemed fitting to the Gardners to honor their firstborn son Sterling by naming the company Sterling Ideas.

The beginning was hard. The phone didn’t ring. There weren’t any clients. No one was knocking down the door to hire Sterling Ideas. In fact, one company Charles taught for went bankrupt and left its instructors (including Charles) with thousands of dollars of unpaid pay. It was devastating to a family with young children, but it wasn’t the end of the story. Charles kept at it, running the company alone for almost two full decades, acquiring clients through honest business practices with integrity, hard work, and many late nights. It is a badge of honor that most of his original clients are still on the books today.

Charles’ desire has always been to help other businesses succeed. He’s always known that efficient IT services which protect clients’ data is a critical catalyst to small business success. As he has always believed small businesses to be the backbone of this great country, he worked hard to make sure his clients thrived.

In 2018, Sterling graduated from the University of Florida and joined his father at the family business, and Charles finally had someone to work alongside and share the day-to-day demands. Since then the team has continued to grow, but the foundations of the company remain the same: honest business practices, integrity, hard work. With these values come success.

Data Protection

While you have valuable IT equipment on your books, the data you create, use, and store is far more valuable than the equipment and far harder to replace. Insurance can replace your equipment in a few days, but it cannot readily replace data from a true loss. Sterling Ideas understands your data is unique and uniquely valuable. Protecting your data has long been one of our highest priorities.

No matter the threat – ransomware, hacker, hardware failure, natural disaster, or a hundred other crises – you need to know your data is safe. Sterling Ideas will work with you to identify where your data lives and deploy systems to backup and protect that data. Then, Sterling Ideas will monitor those systems to verify they keep protecting your data. And then most importantly, Sterling Ideas tests data recovery to make sure your data is ready if you need it.

Cyber Security

Armed criminals are trying to break into your organization and take hostages. That is the sad truth today. They may be armed with ransomware, not guns, and may attack from thousands of miles away, but make no mistake that they are well-funded criminals looking for opportunities. While many small businesses may think that they have nothing of interest to attackers, the truth is that if you have any data that you need access to, you have a worthwhile target for an attacker.

In the face of these types of threats, Sterling Ideas deploys a suite of security systems to help protect you. Your computers are protected by an advanced antivirus system and the Huntress threat hunting system. Your 365 email is protected with Microsoft’s advanced anti-spam and anti-malware and the Ironscales anti-phishing platform. Your internet logins are protected with Keeper password manager and Duo multi-factor authentication. Sterling Ideas deploy security systems, work alongside you to design secure methods of work, and evaluate new options when the needs arise. Bottom line – Sterling Ideas delivers peace of mind.

System Availability

Good technology augments your staff and operations almost like another staff member, and, like staff, the technology needs to show up to work every day. Sterling Ideas monitors and maintain your computers, servers, and networks to help ensure the systems are available when you need them. Hardware and software needs to be monitored and updated to run its best, and that’s what Sterling Ideas does. With complex systems, you cannot simply plug it in and expect it to work. To get the uptime you need, an expert must maintain the system, and that is what Sterling Ideas does.

Beyond what you have today, Sterling Ideas will help you design systems to optimize availability, whether that is redundant server equipment, redundant internet connections, a spare laptop on site, or highly available cloud services. Sterling Ideas’ expertise can help your operations run more smoothly.

Charles Gardner, President & Senior Service Delivery Engineer

“Since 1999, we’ve helped our clients implement technology solutions to strengthen their companies.”