Steve Boers marvels at the research being conducted at the Great Ape Trust of Iowa.

But he also sees what his company’s vision has brought to that already-visionary project. T3 Technologies Inc. has spent years designing and installing state-of-the-art technology and electrical equipment – a network that includes hidden cameras and controlled-access doors – at the Great Ape complex.

With the success of such an innovative project and contract work planned for several additional buildings in the complex, Boers hopes the Great Ape Trust will help launch T3 Technologies onto the national and international scene.

“There’s not an opportunity we’re afraid of,” said Boers, whose company recently received the Best Kept Secret Award in the Greater Des Moines Partnership’s 2005 Celebrate Business Awards competition.

Boers founded the company in 2000 after 25 years in the electrical and communications industries. The sudden death of his 29-year-old daughter, Stephanie, earlier that year got him to think about a career change. He also began to see more opportunities to inject creativity into seemingly standard projects.

“Design-build has been our niche because we have the creative instincts, I think, to make a project better,’” Boers said.

T3 Technologies, an electrical contractor that specializes in design-build projects and the installation of cutting-edge technology, has focused its growth locally, but with big-name projects. The company has completed projects at the Civic Center of Greater Des Moines and the Des Moines Art Center and was involved in the renovation of Hoyt Sherman Place.

“The facilities we’re working on, they’re going to be here for another 100 years,” Boers said. “It’s our way of making a statement.”

T3, which has grown from five employees to a 20-person staff in five years, is in the midst of a project at the Salisbury House that includes work not seen in Iowa until now, including a wireless security and fire alarm system and an unusual fire suppressant that will protect the mansion’s library collection. A wireless lighting-control system will enable the staff to preprogram the lights around the house for tours.

At the Great Ape Trust, T3 Technologies completed work that Boers said is “the first of its kind,” which he said is the result of intense vision and intense collaboration with the researchers.

“The interesting thing I’ve found with the challenges we have on the technology side is that if you can dream the dream, there’s probably something out there to build it,” Boers said.

The company oversaw the design and implementation of a door-control system as well as a touch-screen keyboard the apes use to communicate and soon to access vending machine items.

The dream for T3 Technologies and the Great Ape Trust now is that, through the Internet, apes in research facilities throughout the world will be able to communicate through the use of those touch-screen keyboards.

Boers attributes much of his company’s success to vision, persistence, performance, integrity – “Technology with integrity” is one of the company’s taglines – and community involvement, all of which tie into relationships, which have landed T3 Technologies numerous projects in its five-year history.

“It shouldn’t be a secret,” he said of T3 and its recent award. “There’s still a ton of untapped creativity. We just need the opportunities to prove that.”