MARTINSBURG -- When Harry M. Siegel started HMS Technologies Inc. in late 2003, he knew he could bring in business by providing top-flight computer hardware and software along with high-tech problem-solving processes.

He also knew he wanted a different feel for his company—highly professional but in no way a typical corporate America operation.

Six years in, the business the South Carolina native launched from his basement has wrapped up more than $200 million in projects, with millions more in the pipeline. Just last month, the company announced it had landed another in a string of federal contracts, this one a five-year, blanket purchase order worth at least $500,000 from the National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration and National Weather Service to provide cost-estimating services.

Another recent contract is even bigger—a $75 million effort to create plans for continuity of operations to all of Health and Human Services organizations, such as the NIH, FDA and CDC in the event of a natural disaster or a cataclysmic event, such as the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

New contracts will mean a bigger footprint for HMS, which already has outgrown two homes—first Siegel's basement in northern Berkeley County and then an office in downtown Martinsburg.

Eighteen months ago, HMS moved into a breathtaking, converted barn dating to 1705. Located just outside of the city, the vast stone structure—once used as a TV news studio and more recently as a church -- includes some 14,000 square feet of space, but work is under way to reconfigure the building's one-time auditorium and large conference room into more than 20 executive offices and work stations.

Siegel said further growth will mean constructing a new building on the six-acre site, a move that's likely only three years off, he predicts.

From the moment a visitor gets buzzed into HMS's secure headquarters inside the massive stone barn less than a mile from Interstate 81, it's clear Siegel has kept good on his promise to create a work atmosphere that's unusually warm. In the long hallway adjacent to the headquarters' foyer, an orange kitten named Garfield frolics before darting into the office of media affairs director Cassandra A. White.

"We rescued Garfield and Oreo from the Humane Society, and they're kind of our company mascots," said Siegel, who is 59. "It's good for everyone's blood pressure, I think. You'll see almost everyone has created a space in a desk drawer or somewhere where these guys can curl up and take a nap. To be able to love on these little cats during the day, it's a morale boost."

Siegel has other pet projects to reward HMS employees. Every Friday, a massage therapist comes to HMS to give workers 15-minute neck and shoulder treatments. And in cold weather, staff members can be seen sporting the $400 maroon and gray leather letter jackets that Siegel orders as rewards for exemplary work.

"When I hire new employees, I'm looking for the best people but also the ones who I know will work well with the existing staff," said Siegel, who was a high school All-America football player who went on to play at the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Md.

"I love sports and sports analogies," he said. "What we're really doing is hiring another teammate. We have 40 employees here at our corporate facility, so we're still small enough that I know everybody's names, where they grew up, how old their kids are."

Kathy Mason, the business programs manager for the Berkeley County Development Authority, describes Siegel as powerful leader.

"Besides having more energy than almost anyone I know, Harry is brilliant and he's very focused," she said. "He knows exactly what he wants and goes after it."

Siegel's commitment to his workers is another contributor to HMS's success, she said. "One of the things I admire most about Harry is that he takes care of his employees," she said. "He sets his expectations, and they live up to those expectations because they respect him."

For many of his new hires, landing a tech job in the Eastern Panhandle means an end to the daily grind of traveling into Washington, northern Virginia and other bigger cities for work. It's the kind of commute Siegel, formerly the chief operating officer for Rockville, Md.-based IQ Solutions, made from the time he settled in Falling Waters in 1994 until he launched HMS.

In the years before going into business for himself, Siegel worked for small, medium-sized and large tech companies and picked up ideas at every post.

"I filed away good ideas, as well as things I didn't like that I knew I'd never do if I had a company of my own," he said. "One thing I knew I wanted to do was to treat my employees well."

"Every year since we've been in business, every employee has gotten a Christmas bonus. We have a 401(k) that matches 100 percent, and we look for ways every day to let every employee know how much we value what they bring to this company."

Siegel believes in giving employees a boost whenever possible.

"What's the old Vidal Sassoon quote, 'If you don't look good, I don't look good'? Think about a world where you want everyone around you to be superior, the absolute best they possibly can be. That's the work atmosphere we create here."

Veterans make up some 45 percent of the HMS work force.

"I know that veterans are not looking for handouts, but just a leg up to help them be successful," Siegel said. "These are people who put their country and service ahead of even their families or themselves, so if I can help them succeed, that's what I want to do."

Many credit HMS's mammoth success to a laser-like focus on three key industries: health care, first responders and public safety. The Department of Veterans Affairs is the company's largest single client. The Department of Defense, FEMA, OSHA, the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the FDA also are on HMS's client list.

Besides a trophy case full of awards that recognize Siegel individually and the company as a whole, HMS also has won attention for a growth rate of more than 2,750 percent in the past four years with revenues that totaled $22.6 million last year. The business magazine Inc. recently named HMS the fastest-growing privately held business in the state of West Virginia as well as the 45th fastest-growing privately held company in the nation.

Siegel, for one, isn't at all surprised with his company's rocket-style growth.

"Actually, we're right where I thought we'd be at this point," he said. "If you go back and look at the five-year plan I laid out, we're almost exactly on target."

Coming up with goals and then working to make them happen isn't anything new to Siegel.

"I've been coming up with five-year plans for myself since I was 5 years old," he said. "When I was 5, I knew that at 10 years old I wanted to be playing linebacker on a peewee football team. At 10 years old, I knew I wanted to be an Eagle Scout by the time I was 14, and I met those goals. I don't know where that came from, but I always, always set goals for myself."

And before he was even a teenager, Siegel was sharing business ideas with his father, who had been drafted as a 37-year-old late in World War II and came home completely disabled.

"My dad had some great ideas, but there was always some element that didn't quite work," he remembered. "He came up with the idea of delivering mail and packages overnight anywhere in South Carolina. Sounds a lot like Federal Express, right? The problem was, most people at the time didn't have much that needed to be anywhere that fast—court documents, but not much else."

Another of his dad's businesses—a wholesale beer company—might have worked with a different mix of brews, Siegel said.

"In South Carolina in 1957, most beer drinkers wanted Pabst Blue Ribbon and Budweiser, and my dad was selling Ballantine Ale and National Bohemian."

Finally, Siegel recalled, his dad came to him seeking counsel.

"He said he needed a business that would work for sure, and we started talking about what people really needed," Siegel said. "We went through all the basics—food, clothes, medicine—and realized there were stores already that took care of that. Then I thought of weapons. People needed a place where they could buy guns. I remember my dad said, 'That's a hell of an idea.'"

In the years to come, Siegel helped out at his dad's gun shop -- and learned some powerful lessons about making sales and delighting customers.

"I taught myself everything I could about guns, and when I had someone who was on the fence, I could say, 'If you buy this weapon, I'll teach you how to take it apart, put it back together, clean it and shoot it.' I made a lot of sales that way."

Siegel, who became disabled after serving in Vietnam, for years had mulled starting a business of his own, but it wasn't until President George W. Bush issued Executive Order 13360, which mandated set-asides and sole-source contracts for Service Disabled Veteran-Owned Businesses, that he felt the timing was right.

"It gave me an opportunity to have a niche," he said.

The chance to provide disabled veterans with meaningful work clearly thrills him. One project, begun in recent weeks, tasks workers with creating digital images of all the documents tied to the death records of 800,000 veterans with more than 30 million documents dating back nearly a century.

"Some of the pages from World War I are on onion skin," Siegel said. "We bought a $60,000 scanner that allows us to scan in the document on both sides without bending the document. This kind of work is perfect for a wounded warrior, and it's going to be great as far as access to the public, too.

"Right now, getting a veteran's death records takes four months and costs about $2,500 to complete. When we've converted everything to an electronic file, it'll cost about $15 and take 20 minutes."

With so many contracts continuing to flow from the federal government, Siegel said the recession hasn't hurt his company. Among Siegel's goals is a plan to take the company public by 2012. He also plans to continue to mentor CEOs and to cultivate leaders within HMS and elsewhere.

"My son Sloane is 8 years old now, but when he was just a preschooler we had the most amazing exchange about leadership," Siegel said. "I loved dropping him off at preschool in the morning and having that time together. And I always gave him the same three pieces of advice: 'Be good. Pay attention. Be a leader.'

"And one morning, Sloane said, 'Daddy, does 'be a leader' mean I should boss my friends around?'

"And so I got to explain to him that being a leader isn't about bossing people around—it's about being a person that others can trust to take them to safety or to victory. It's not about taking the winning shot, but maybe setting someone else up to get to the goal. It's about doing the right thing even if people aren't looking."