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Copyright American City Business Journals Apr 28, 2000

RYAN WALKER

President and CEO SharkBYTES Inc.

Age: 27

Ryan Walker got his first computer at age 10, a TRS-80 that predated the PC and Macintosh, with 16K of RAM.

"It was about as powerful as a hand-held computer," he said.

But Walker was looking at his future. By the time he dropped out of the University of Cincinnati, after two years as a computer science major, he already had an appreciation for the future of an electronic network called the World Wide Web. A year later, Walker, his college roommate, his brother and his future wife, Shannon, started SharkBYTES, a consulting business that designs Web sites, with $80 in start-up capital. The Web was little more than vast electronic space then, and Mosaic, a precursor to Netscape Navigator, was the browser one used to get around.

"We designed our first Web site using that technology," Walker said.

From those inauspicious beginnings, SharkBYTEs has grown to 25 employees and more than $1 million in annual revenues. Clients include the Greater Cincinnati Chamber of Commerce, Gold Star Chili, Hillshire Farm & Kahn's and the Cincinnati Museum Center.

Last year, the partners sold the business to UCI Web Group Inc., a Boca Raton, Fla., company that rolled up SharkBYTES with three other Web development companies. Walker still serves as president and CEO of downtown-based SharkBYTES.

On the community side, Walker donates food and spends one day a month serving dinner at the Ronald McDonald House. He's also done pro bono Web-consulting projects for nonprofits in the Tri-State, including the Talbert House, and volunteered for last year's Flying Pig Marathon, for which SharkBYTES served as a corporate sponsor. Walker and wife, who also still works at SharkBYTES, live in Anderson Township with their 1-yearold son, Emerson.

While SharkBYTES is his current career, Walker could move on if, as predicted, parent company UCI goes public. lie won't stray far from his Internet roots, however.

"I would say that we're part of a 30-year trend," he said. "I think it Would make sense for me to focus my career on Internet development."