Company founder reaches high for next venture

After three decades of chasing, hustling and growing, lifelong entrepreneur Barry Shevlin found himself in a rare spot late last year: He almost had nothing to do.

A firm he founded in 2002, Clearwater-based managed IT services firm Vology, had just received what he called a “transformative” investment and recapitalization from a North Carolina equity firm. He could have stayed on at Vology, where he maintains an ownership stake. But Shevlin instead amicably parted ways. “It was just so different,” says Shevlin, the Business Observer’s Entrepreneur of the Year in 2008, about going to work but no longer running the company. “It just didn’t feel right.”