Deltek's name is short for deLaski Technologies, after the father and son who started it. Donald and Kenneth deLaski built software for a niche most vendors ignored: companies that work on government contracts. Those firms must track every hour and dollar by project, under strict federal rules. Deltek, based in McLean, Virginia, near Washington, did that bookkeeping. It went public in February 1997.

A Father, a Son, a Niche

Donald and Kenneth deLaski founded Deltek in Virginia in 1983. Their customers were engineering firms, defense contractors and consultants that billed clients project by project, often under federal government contracts. Generic accounting packages could not handle the way those contracts required costs to be tracked and reported. Deltek's software could. At the IPO, Kenneth deLaski was chief executive and Donald deLaski was chairman, and together they kept a large stake in the company.

Four Owners in Twenty Years

Deltek priced its IPO at $11 a share in February 1997 and listed on Nasdaq as DLTK. It left the public market in 2002. In 2005 New Mountain Capital bought 75 percent of the company, and Deltek went public again in 2007, raising $162 million. Thoma Bravo bought it in 2012 for about $1.1 billion. Roper Technologies bought it in late 2016 for $2.8 billion in cash.

Cover: Untitled (Portrait of Surveyor), Unknown. Art Institute of Chicago, public domain. Chosen for a surveyor (measuring every project).