Growing IT firm in Bentonville rebrands

After two decades of operating as L.J. Smith & Associates, an IT consulting firm in Bentonville has changed its name.

President and CEO Jared Smith says the agency is now Kitestring Technical Services. He said the name change was brought on by a desire to drive brand awareness.

“The previous name was a little cumbersome, and we wanted something simple. And hopefully memorable,” he said.

Smith is the son of company founder Larry Smith, who founded the business in 1997 and retired in 2012. They are the majority owners of the family-owned business, which has 120 employees and had revenue in 2017 of about $12 million.

“We expect to generate closer to $20 million in 2018,” Jared Smith said. “We are growing pretty rapidly.”

Smith, a Little Rock native who earned a doctorate in physical chemistry from the University of California, said Kitestring has added about 50 employees in 2018. To accommodate the growth, the company recently relocated its administrative and management offices to a 3,000-square-foot space in Raintree Business Park at 908 S. Walton Blvd. in Bentonville.

Smith said Kitestring provides technical services to a variety of clients, including “a lot of business” with Walmart Inc. But the company also has a footprint of work that includes customers in other areas including North Carolina, Texas and Washington, D.C. The company also started working recently with a customer in Canada.