HispanicBusiness

--> Rick and David Cantu were born in rural Washington state and raised by a single mother who moved to a lower-income community south of Seattle. Dave, the older brother, attended Green River Community College, while the younger Rick played soccer for Seattle Pacific University.

While working together at a temporary job, they recognized the enormous potential that selling refurbished Sun Microsystems products presented, and the brothers made the difficult decision to delay educational goals to take advantage of this opportunity. With their uncle, they went into business in 1996, operating out of a garage.

Thanks to their excellent understanding of the refurbished equipment market and skills at building an organization around constant training, Redapt Systems & Peripherals grew rapidly, with FY2000 revenues topping $57 million. The company currently has 60 employees and is the largest Hispanic-owned business in Washington state.

Redapt has partnered with manufacturers such as Oracle, Veritas, IBM, Cisco, and many others to provide the most complete solutions possible to their customers, the majority of which rank in the Fortune 1000.

In September, Rick will eagerly return to his most important goal -– obtaining a college degree. Recently married, he would like his future children to understand the importance he places on education. He lives across the street from David, also married, and they continue to manage and build the company.