BusinessTN

Mike Atlas needed a bigger house to accommodate his growing family, but finding something affordable in the Washington, D.C., area where he lived meant moving farther away from his job. And he was already tired of commuting.

"I was driving 11 miles to work, and it took 45 minutes. When it was
raining, it took an hour and a half," says the 32-year-old Atlas, who was the IT director for the Friedman, Billings, Ramsey Group in Arlington, Va.

So, Atlas and his wife Julie set out to find "a better life." On Memorial Day weekend 2006, they visited Julie's sister, who has lived in Nashville for about 14 years, and they "fell in love with the area."

"We saw how much house we could have for the money," Atlas says. "Plus, my wife and I played music in a band in D.C., and Nashville has so much great music and so many great musicians, it seemed like a good match."

He began looking for tech jobs immediately, and ultimately, his r´sum´ ended up in the hands of Beth Chase, president of C3 Consulting—a consulting firm focused on project leadership for companies experiencing growth or change. By September, Atlas had accepted a senior consultant position with C3, and his wife and their two sons, Max, 4, and Pierce, 2, had moved into their new home in
Franklin.

"Our house is wonderful. We're trying to get together with folks to play music—there are a lot of people in IT who play music—and the traffic is nothing," Atlas says.

Originally from Hartford, Conn., Atlas was amazed at how friendly people are here.

"Strangers say 'hi' to you,
and at first, I was a little wary of that—I thought they were trying to sell something. But they
seem genuinely interested in how you're doing," he says.

At C3, he serves in a project management
role, typically overseeing IT infrastructure-related jobs. He's thrilled with his company, as well
as with Nashville's IT community.

"It's smaller than D.C.'s," he says, "so you have the ability
to make a mark, not only in your organization, but also on the tech community as a whole."