PORTSMOUTH SMALL BUSINESS OF THE YEAR SIMIS INC.

For SimIS Inc., business was good from its founding in 2007 until 2011. The company provided architecture consultation services and building models plus simulations and information security solutions for the defense sector.

Then the closing of the Joint Forces Command made founder, President and CEO Johnny Garcia, Ph.D., Jay Gendron, operations officer, and the 21 employees take an about-face and look to a different market - the ever-growing medical training industry.

The result is a patent that is pending jointly with Eastern Virginia Medical School that trains health care professionals in various areas of medicine through modeling and simulation.

"We want our medical professionals to be able to master their trade. This will allow it," Garcia said in the downtown Portsmouth headquarters.

The medical training products have gained the attention of local and national investors. Medical professionals in Europe have also expressed interest.

"It has gotten a lot larger than we expected," Garcia said.

They hope to have the service available for purchase later this year, Garcia said. SimIS also tapped into another major concern in the 21st century - cyber security. It has federal contracts with NASA, NOAA and the Department of Commerce.

"When it comes to modeling and simulation, they look to us as experts," Gendron said.

That expertise is spearheaded by Garcia who served in the U.S. Navy, worked for General Dynamics for 16 years and earned his Ph.D. in engineering and modeling and simulation from Old Dominion University. Garcia began the business based on his dissertation, which focuses on design implementation of on-demand and executable architectures.

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