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Feature:
NINA"S VACA"S
IT Revolution
Sonja Cassella
 Nina Vaca's IT business, Pinnacle 1, is reaching new heights as it enjoys being the fifth-fastest growing business in America posting $60 million in revenues for 2006. By Sonja Cassella
N MY GUT I KNEW I COULD DO THIS," Nina Vaca responds when asked how she had the chutzpah to start an IT business when she was barely out of college. Today her company, Pinnacle 1, is the fifth-fastest growing business in America according to Inner City 100, and posted 2006 revenues of $60 million.
There must have been more to her success than self-confidence, though. "First of all, the market was right," she explains, and describes how, when her company started during the '90's it was the height of the dot.com era. Businesses were transitioning their mainframe computers, which she described as "the size of 30 refrigerators," to the Unix system, "the size of a VCR."
Thanks to her training at Texas State San Marcos and her first job out of college in New York City, she was uniquely positioned to offer technical and staffing services to Fortune 500 companies – and that's just what she began to do at age 24.
Vaca was following the mandate of her parents, who immigrated to the United States from Ecuador when Nina, the oldest of five children, was just 2. She was raised in Los Angeles, eventually helping with her family's travel agency business. "There's nothing more powerful than that silent example," she says now of her parents' work ethic and their support of her dreams and ability. "They showed me that I could become who I wanted to be."
She moved to Texas as a college freshman at Texas State, and described the university as another critical component of her success. "It was a close-knit university where I wasn't lost." The personal attention she received at Texas State was and is yet another opportunity for gratitude.
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