K12itc has been named the Small Business of the Year at the Greater Kansas City Chamber of Commerce’s 30th annual Small Business Celebration.

The company’s CEO, Brad Sandt, was presented with the Mr. K Award, which is named after the legendary Kansas City entrepreneur Ewing Kauffman.

K12itc is a member of the 25 Under 25® Class of 2014 and was the Thinking Bigger Business magazine cover company in January 2015. The business creates customized, outsourced technology solutions and services for K-12 school districts.

After heading the IT department for the Park Hill School District for 14 years, Sandt decided to seize an opportunity and start his own business, k12itc.

“I saw that many schools were having trouble maintaining their IT environment,” Sandt said.

He decided to stay within the educational market since he already had a solid understanding of the challenges the industry faced, such as textbooks going digital and classes going online.

“We were also able to package things together in an efficient manner that made sense as schools were dealing with budget challenges throughout the country, ” said Sandt.

In just five years, k12itc has grown exponentially. The company serves 80 school districts as well as a number of private and charter schools across seven states, and revenue has grown 18,000 percent.

The finalists for the Mr. K Award included:

• AdamsGabbert
• Alpha Energy and Electric
• Centric Projects
• DataLocker
• International Builders & Consultants
• Lead Bank
• Posty Cards
• Veracity Consulting
• Weave Gotcha Covered!