Varsity was a menswear store in Williamsport, Pennsylvania before it was a technology company. Two brothers ran it, their names are on the postcard, and the standard they set is the one we still work to.
Two brothers ran a menswear store in downtown Williamsport, Pennsylvania. Pasqualino Ciccarelli, known to everyone as Lee, and his brother Clemy. Lee was Patrick's father. The postcard they printed for the store read "Fine clothing at fair prices. Williamsport's friendliest men's store."
That is a positioning statement written by people who could not out-buy a department store and knew it. What they could compete on was how a customer got treated on the floor, and whether the advice they gave was honest. It worked well enough to support two families for a generation.
"Fine clothing at fair prices.
Williamsport's friendliest men's store."
Varsity Technologies carries the name because the proposition transfers. Substitute the trade and the sentence still holds: fair prices, honest advice, from people you would actually want to call.
In a store that size there is nowhere to hide. You are on the floor, the customer knows your name, and if you sell someone a suit that does not work for them they come back and tell you. Every incentive points toward being straight with people, because the alternative costs you the only asset you have.
Patrick grew up around that. It is why Varsity publishes its service levels rather than describing them, why every line on an invoice has to be explainable in a sentence, and why the number we watch is retention rather than new logos.
Large providers optimize for contract volume. We are structured to be the firm a client stays with, which is a different business and requires different habits.
By 1965 the Varsity Shop was running full-page Father's Day advertisements in the Sun-Gazette from 348 Pine Street. Manhattan shirts from four dollars. A cool wash-and-wear suit at thirty-four ninety-five. Weldon pajamas, terry robes, Rugby Sportcrafter jackets, and a Shield Shine-O-Matic shoe buffer at three ninety-five.
It is a document of a business that knew exactly who its customer was and what he needed help buying. That specificity is the thing worth carrying forward. Generic offerings are easy to write and hard to deliver against.
The script logo at the bottom of that advertisement, with the pennant behind the V, is the ancestor of the mark at the top of this page.
Patrick started his career teaching in San Francisco public schools, and went on to help build the Cisco Networking Academy at San Francisco State into one of the largest technology training programs in California. Schools kept asking him to fix things. In 1997 that became consulting work.
By 1999 it had enough shape to need a name, and the name that fit was already in the family. Varsity has been on the door ever since — through a book-writing decade, the move into managed services in 2008, and the shift toward compliance and AI that defines the work now.
The entrepreneurial instinct came from Williamsport. The subject matter came from the classroom.
We hire people who want to do technology work that matters, and who are comfortable being the person a client calls by name. If that sounds right, we would like to hear from you.
