This month in International WOMENS Month We Celebrate 
Ms. Venus Quates

Venus Quates, 43, grew up in a single-parent household in inner-city Buffalo, New York, where her smarts got her into a college prep school. While most of her classmates went off to Ivy League colleges, Quates decided to follow in her grandfather's footsteps and join the Air Force. She spent four years working in information management in locations such as South Korea, Italy, and Saudi Arabia, and then landed a job at the aerospace firm General Dynamics. Throughout her 15 years working technical jobs, Quates was often the only Brown woman in the room and constantly felt like she was underestimated. That motivated her to quit her job and start her own technology solutions company in 2016. The leap would lead to more obstacles and -- eventually -- resounding success. 

She started LaunchTech out of my bedroom back home and lived off my savings while she tried to get customers. In the early days, she had different aliases when she spoke with potential clients: Often Ms. Quates recalls she would adopt a British accent and pretend to be an assistant; maybe mention Bob in accounting. None of these people existed. It was all her!

A year in, she was on her way to an SBA class and her car got rear-ended. Ms. Quates had to go through vestibular therapy to regain my balance. She used to be a fast talker, but now she must take a moment and choose her words. Until now, only a few people knew that this happened to her. Her mind is what makes her money, so she is rather insecure about people knowing. But she thinks it’s important for her to deal with it.

Not long after the accident, she and her spouse abruptly got divorced, and was left with next to nothing. Recently, while scrolling through photos she saw a screenshot of a bank statement from around that time: Her account had negative $270 At that point, LaunchTech served as an outsource tech department, helping a few smaller clients upgrade their systems or providing IT support. She had a few part-time workers and paid her mom to be my receptionist.



Ms. Quates kept hustling, trying to earn bigger contracts. In 2018, she won one with the state of New York to provide IT solutions at a workforce training center. It was her first real contract, but she had underbid herself and it wasn't enough money for her to hire the people needed. Lesson learned. Eventually, her company earned contracts with the Air Force, the Department of the Army, and New York City's Metropolitan Transportation Authority, could finally hire people. Today, there are 28 employees within the company.

The company moved their headquarters in 2021. Ms. Quates loves Buffalo but realizes it's not easy to find people there who have experience doing business with the government. Huntsville has one of the highest rates of government spending, but it's way cheaper than places like D.C. It was a great decision.

Ms. Quates shared “sometimes, I still feel like I need to go overboard to prove that we're the best, because we're run by somebody who looks like me. At my last job, I was a data storage engineer for a bank and worked on the third floor. When I got in the elevator in the morning, somebody would usually press two for me -- that was where most of the people of color worked, in the cafeteria. My team was all White males and me. When our vendors came to visit, they would pass business cards out to everybody except me, probably because they thought I was a secretary.

I founded LaunchTech because I wanted to start a company that would be so successful you couldn't deny that we're intelligent enough to do what we're doing. Our last year in Buffalo, we were No. 1 in that city on the Inc. 5000 list. Our first year in Huntsville, we were No. 1 here. There's no denying us anymore. It doesn't matter if I'm the only Brown person in the room or the only woman in the room. I know I'm supposed to be there."

Congratulations to Ms. Venus Quates. May God continue to exalt her far beyond all her expectations.