South Carolina 50 Fastest Growing Companies: No. 3, ND3 Inc.

(Photo by Greenville Headshots)

After two decades in the U.S. Army, Nathaniel Durant was ready to start a business using the expertise and contacts he had garnered during his service.

Durant, who retired as a lieutenant colonel in 2020, founded ND3 Inc. “on paper” in 2018, but he went into the business full-time just as the pandemic ramped up. ND3 has three components: IT support and services, logistics, and drone support.

“Worst time ever to retire and start a business,” Durant said with a wry laugh. “That first year was tragic. It was hard, painful. I almost quit several times.”

Things began looking up in 2021, when Durant was awarded a subcontract doing IT work for the Marines. Soon after, he was able to take part in the Small Business Administration’s 8(a) business development program, and things took off from there.

The Columbia-based ND3 Inc. was ranked No. 3 on this year’s 50 Fastest Growing Companies in South Carolina list. Five years after its rocky start, ND3 now has 106 employees.

Durant joined the Army in 2000, spending the first decade as a tanker armor officer, much of it in Iraq, and the second decade working in a “functional area” in modeling and simulations for exercise planning.

“My last assignment happened to be in Army Central, which is responsible for the Middle East, which is how I got a lot of my connections in Middle East,” Durant said.

One of the company’s biggest projects is with the U.S. Department of Justice. While BAE Systems is the main contractor, ND3 is a subcontractor for the department’s IT support, an eight-year deal that began in 2022.

“We’re providing the Department of Justice’s enterprise IT support,” Durant said. “So we’re managing their entire network – website, help desk, everything for the 93-odd U.S. Attorneys’ offices across the country. So we run the help desk for that, and it happens to be here in Columbia, South Carolina, the network operations center.”

What that means, Durant said, is that if a user has problems with a computer, they call ND3’s help desk. The company has a person in Washington, D.C., and a small team in Columbia to address those issues.

In addition to ND3’s work with the Justice Department, the company also provides IT and audiovisual support for some organizations on Fort Jackson in Columbia.

“There are a bunch of classrooms on Fort Jackson, and we provide the technology that links all of those classrooms together, and then we provide the help desk and IT support for those,” he said.

ND3 also upgraded the audio system on the parade field at Fort Jackson.

On the logistics side of things, the company provides logistical support for several clients, including equipment maintenance for the 81st Readiness Division.

“On that particular contract, we have everything from truck drivers to mechanics that are out in the fields at the different sites throughout the Southeast here and Puerto Rico. So we’ve got about 90 people on that particular contract,” he said.

The company’s logistical work has also included providing shower/latrine and laundry units to an outpost in Syria.

At ND3’s Columbia office, there are budget analysts, maintenance analysts, and a social media/marketing manager. And there are maintenance technicians who work to keep the equipment running at all the sites.

Drone support is a big part of ND3’s work, and drones of various shapes and sizes line one wall of Durant’s office. He explains that he began building drones more than 10 years ago.

“I developed a drone academy to teach people how to fly and to prepare for the Part 107 exam, which is a set of rules issued by the FAA (Federal Aviation Administration) to kind of box us in, to make sure we’re doing the right thing. Not flying too high or too low or beyond visual line of sight,” Durant said. “So I prep people for that particular type of license, and I teach them how to fly.”

ND3 also provides support to local government agencies related to countering unmanned aerial systems, which have the potential to carry bombs. The public safety aspect is a challenge, he said, because drones can be used for many illegal or dangerous purposes, including delivering drugs and other contraband items to prison yards.

After Durant started with drones, “then I got traction with the other stuff. So I had to put it to the back burner for a while” as other aspects of the business ramped up. Now that things are rolling along with the rest of the business, he’s turning his attention back to drones.

Building the business hasn’t always been easy, but Durant credits the skills and the relationships from his time in the military for much of ND3’s success.

“One of the principles that has gotten me this far is, if a door is halfway open for me, you kind of go in the door. … I didn’t force something that wasn’t there. And these doors were cracked, so I just went in these doors.”