Atomic Object marks 25 years growing Grand Rapids tech community

Jason Porritt grew up in Hudsonville, went to Michigan Tech for a computer science degree, and came home to West Michigan to build his career.

More than two decades later, he’s helping the next generation do the same.

Porritt is a managing partner at Atomic Object, the Grand Rapids software design and development company celebrating its 25th anniversary this year. His career tracks with a much bigger change in West Michigan.

When Porritt started working in technology here in 2003, Grand Rapids didn’t have the connected tech community it has now.

“There were a lot of very small user groups, very tech-focused and very grassroots kind of efforts, people coming together around specific tools or languages,” Porritt says.

Atomic Object, founded in Grand Rapids in 2001, was part of that early community. As the employee-owned company grew, so did the network of local software developers, designers, colleges, businesses, and organizations around it.

Atomic helped companies use technology to solve problems and develop products. Its employees also invested time in relationships, shared what they knew, and supported others working in technology.

Porritt saw that before he ever worked there.

Early tech community

Atomic was doing work for one of his previous employers when he got to know the company. He was impressed by employees’ approach to software development and their willingness to help others.

“The first thing that caught my attention with some of the early employees and the co-founder of the company, Carl Erickson, was the way that they thought about technology and software as a craft, and also how generous they were with their time and investing in relationships,” Porritt says.

That community has grown considerably since then.

“Now it’s interesting to look around and see The Right Place with their technology council, Tech Week Grand Rapids,” Porritt says. “It’s been a really big evolution towards a lot more cross-discipline promotion.”

Technology is no longer viewed only as something happening behind the scenes at West Michigan companies, he says. It increasingly is seen as part of the region’s economic growth.

Atomic’s story is one piece of that change.

The company had about 25 employees when Porritt joined in 2010. It now has about 140 employees, including about 45 in Grand Rapids, 60 in Ann Arbor, and 15 each in Chicago and Raleigh, North Carolina.

Steeped in region’s culture

Even as Atomic expanded beyond Grand Rapids, Porritt says its West Michigan beginnings remained part of its culture. He describes a place where people can be good at what they do without feeling the need to prove it.

“There’s something very West Michigan about that approach, and I think that has formed the basis of the culture we are trying to seed into these other offices,” Porritt says.

He sees a connection between that culture and the company’s growth.

“That foundation of culture that was kind of steeped in that Grand Rapids Midwest humility and excellence ethic, I think that formed a really significant foundation to our growth,” he says.

Kimberly Crawford, who leads the Grand Rapids office alongside Porritt, found a similar culture when she joined Atomic about 11 years ago.

“One of our values is ‘give a shit.’ Another way that you could frame that is ‘care deeply,’” Crawford says. “And from the very first interview, I could feel that the people here really, really cared about their work, and also cared about each other as colleagues in a way that I hadn’t felt at other places that I was interviewing at.”

That care extends outside the company, she says.

Atomic is based in Grand Rapids’ Baxter neighborhood. Its pair lunch program pays for two employees to have lunch together, often sending employees walking to nearby businesses.

“Yes, it’s about good business, and it’s about quality and excellence in the work that we do, absolutely,” Crawford says. “But then it’s also about we live here, and we really live deeply here, and we really engage in the community.”

Cultivating talent

West Michigan colleges have become an important part of the region’s tech pipeline, and Atomic Object’s leaders are among their products.

Porritt’s path started in Hudsonville before taking him to Michigan Tech and back to West Michigan. Before joining Atomic in 2010, he worked at local companies including Gordon Food Service and Priority Health.

Crawford’s path began when she moved from the Detroit area to attend Grand Valley State University. She studied graphic design and illustration, later earned a master’s degree in graphic design in Florence, Italy, and moved into digital design.

She returned to West Michigan and worked at The C2 Group and Elevator Up before joining Atomic.

Now Porritt and Crawford are leading an office that hires from the same regional talent pipeline that helped launch their careers.

Porritt points to Grand Valley State University, Hope College, and Calvin University as sources of new talent. Atomic hires recent graduates through its accelerator program, giving them a place to begin their careers and learn from more experienced employees.

The process helps the local tech community build on itself. Students become employees. Employees gain experience. Some become leaders who can teach and hire the people coming behind them.

Atomic has carried some of that West Michigan talent elsewhere, too. Crawford says the two managing partners who helped establish the company’s Raleigh office came from West Michigan.

‘Skin in the game’

Keeping talent here takes more than jobs, Crawford says.

“I think that West Michigan supports a whole life in a way that’s really special, both the professional and the personal side of things,” she says.

She points to the lakeshore, parks, museums, music, and other amenities that give people reasons to build lives here as well as careers.

“The tech industry is amazing here,” Crawford says. “But there’s also this other world that supports building a family and supporting a real life here that is really special to West Michigan.”

Atomic has remained employee-owned as it has grown.

About 75 of its roughly 140 employees are owners, Porritt says.

Crawford believes ownership encourages employees to think beyond their individual work.

“When you have that level of ownership across the company, when our clients succeed, we are succeeding, and everyone wants the best for the work, for each other, for the building that we are in, for the community that we’re in,” she says.

“I do think it makes a difference when everyone has a little skin in the game.”

Porritt connects ownership to one of Atomic’s values: thinking long term.

Employees who build value in the company can eventually benefit from its growth. The model also gives them a reason to think about what happens after they move on.

That means developing future leaders rather than concentrating knowledge and responsibility with the people already in charge.

Atomic co-founder Carl Erickson took that idea further by setting a goal of building a 100-year-old software company.

Tech Week sign of growth

One place Crawford sees the growth of Grand Rapids’ tech community is Tech Week Grand Rapids. Shawn Crowley, co-CEO of Atomic Object, was one of this year’s event co-chairs.

The event, held Sept. 14-19, brought together companies, entrepreneurs, educators and others working in technology. Atomic participated and marked its 25th anniversary with an event on Sept. 15.

Crawford remembers smaller professional groups that once gave designers and other technology workers places to connect. Some disappeared during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Tech Week brings many parts of the community together on a much larger scale.

“Tech Week feels like a culmination of all these community programs, relationships and business partnerships come to life in a way that just didn’t exist when I first joined the industry,” Crawford says.

She believes the next step is getting better at telling people outside West Michigan what’s happening here.

“There still is a lot of focus on the coasts for thought leadership and innovation, but there are amazing things happening here on the fresh coast,” Crawford says. “I think that we need to talk about it more. We need to be louder about it.”

More to do

Porritt sees plenty of progress, but he also sees gaps. He says that while West Michigan has people trained to work in technology, the region needs more opportunities to keep them here.

Porritt would like to see more large West Michigan employers build their technology teams locally and turn to local companies when they need outside help.

“I think the talent exists here, and I would love to see people build more technology teams here, local in the region, alongside their other business functions that they do have here, and to look to local partners,” he says.

More local technology work could give graduates additional reasons to stay while helping local companies grow.

Money for startups remains another challenge.

Porritt points to recent exits by West Michigan technology companies Bindplane and Payload CMS as signs that technology companies can grow here.

Getting the money to start and expand those companies can still be difficult.

“I think the funding for local tech startups and organizations is still challenging in West Michigan and in Grand Rapids,” Porritt says. “So I think that’s an area that we still have to work towards as well.”

Adapting to future

Artificial intelligence is already changing the industry Atomic entered 25 years ago. But while Porritt expects developers’ tools to keep changing, he doesn’t expect the reason for using them to change as much.

“If I look 25 years into the future, I think our goal will still be the same, which is to help people have a business impact through technology,” he says.

Crawford encourages West Michigan businesses and workers to start experimenting rather than wait for someone else to figure out what AI means for them.

“Engage with the tools, understand what they do, understand how they function,” she says.

She sees this as a time to try things, make mistakes, and learn.

“Now is the time for research and experimentation and trying and failing and learning,” Crawford says, “especially so that you can understand a bit and start to see where this could take you, your organization, your personal life in the future.”

Porritt’s career shows what can happen when people have opportunities close to home. He left for college, then returned and joined a still-small tech company. As Atomic grew, so did Grand Rapids’ tech community.

Now, Porritt is thinking about the next generation and who will continue that work at Atomic and across West Michigan.

“Everyone’s looking for the next generation,” Porritt says. “Who’s the next person who’s going to be doing my job?”

Photos provided by Atomic Object/Jill DeVries Photography