Deval Patrick Visits Mansfield

Gov. Deval Patrick of Massachusetts stopped by Mansfield's Cabot Industrial Park on Wednesday to help celebrate 's 10th anniversary and show how one Massachusetts company is thriving in the current economic climate.

 "I just wanted to come down and tell you happy birthday,” he said.

Patrick stopped by the company as part of a tour he is conducting throughout the state. IneoQuest started in 2001, and has been growing in revenue by 421 percent over the past five years.

“I don’t know what you were doing in the first five years,” Patrick said. “But for the past five years you’ve been on fire.”

The company develops and manufactures technology that allows digital video producers, broadcasters and service providers alike to monitor and fix flaws in the display.

IneoQuest has its headquarters in Mansfield, and also produces much of its hardware there. It's is an international company, with sales offices all over the U.S. and Europe, and will open a new office in China later on this year.

Patrick lauded the efforts of the company, saying that their innovation and creativity was a central part of the Massachusetts ethos.

"I hope you appreciate that [companies like IneoQuest] are central to what I see as a real opportunity for this commonwealth to make the most of this concentration of brainpower," Patrick said. "All this creativity and innovation is a part of our culture really, and I think it's the reason why we're growing jobs faster than 46 other states."

IneoQuest has over 140 employees, 73 of which are from Massachusetts. Many of the company's employees also went to Massachusetts’s colleges. President of the Company Mac Todd himself went to the University of Massachusetts.

“The fact that you are both on the cutting edge of the innovation economy we’ve been trying cultivate and encourage here in the commonwealth, but you’re making things as well, both those things together are really exciting,” he said.

Todd gave Patrick a tour of the facility, showing the governor the different steps in design, development and manufacturing that go into making their video monitoring hardware and software. Later, Todd, Patrick and other IneoQuest employees cut the company's birthday cake together.

The company did not use any tax incentive program when it was started 10 years ago, and Patrick said that their success without usage of the program shows how good they are at what they do.

"Tax incentives are a useful tool," he said. "In my experience in business they are [a] closer; any company that depends on a tax incentive to stay in business is on its way out of business."

The one problem with such a business, Todd said, is that the technology is moving faster than educational institutions’ ability to teach how to use it. Patrick acknowledged this and also suggested that IneoQuest may be eligible for state on the job training programs.

“Our schools have been performing very very well… but we still have gaps,” Patrick said. “Particularly in the (information technology) and high tech spaces… but with some direct contact and encouragement (state and community colleges) can start to provide the courses that are correctly responsive to the workforce needs in the region.”