The workplace environment Joshua Broder has created at Tilson didn’t come about by accident. After serving in the United States Army, he wanted to recreate the strong sense of teamwork and camaraderie felt in the armed services. “Our mission has been to find people who are both good and effective at working with each other,” Broder says. “To make it worth their while we had to find a meaningful mission, bigger than us, and bigger than Maine.” Tilson, an information technology professional services and network deployment business based in Portland, has earned a spot on the Inc. 5000 list of fastest growing companies in the country for the past eight years. Broder started at Tilson as one of three employees in 2006 and became CEO in 2009. Since then Tilson has grown to 400 employees and has installed thousands of miles of fiber optic networks throughout the United States, consulted on local and national projects, and opened offices in 17 states. Half of Tilson’s employees are veterans. “We think vets like to transition home here at Tilson because it’s a place where pushing each other to be better is comfortable, expected, and appreciated,” Broder says. His goal has always been to make a culture focused on taking risks that encourages growth for both individuals and the company.