Spotlight On: Derris Boomer, Founder & CEO, Boomer Technology Group

December 2025 — AI is going to be a leapfrogging opportunity for many companies. With that in mind, Derris Boomer, founder and CEO of Boomer Technology Group, wants New Jersey to become a bigger tech hub. “We’ll probably see a thousand more companies in the next couple of years as a result of (various) initiatives,” he told Invest:.

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What have been your main achievements or highlights in the last year?

2024 was a good year for us from a revenue perspective. This year, we’re doing more alliances, or partnerships. We’re a Microsoft partner, so we’re looking to get more collaborations with other Microsoft partners to generate more business. For example, we just partnered with a company that is a managed-service provider. As a result, we can now offer anything regarding 1st and 2nd level help desk support. That’s new for us this year. 

How have ongoing changes in the market impacted not only your business but also your clients’ business decisions?

We’re seeing a big change regarding how minority businesses are being treated by the federal government. That’s causing a major wave, and I’ll give you an example of that. A lot of my colleagues do a lot of federal government work. Policy changes are changing the way that they do business with the government, but also how the government treats women’s businesses, minority businesses, and so forth. That’s a big landscape change that we’re seeing. 

There’s also uncertainty with the federal government right now. We’re not sure what the next four years will hold, but from my business perspective, there shouldn’t be a big hit on my clients even if the economy changes in the next two to four years, given that my clients are in healthcare and manufacturing, two industries that are normally recession-proof.

But I do see turmoil, especially with the tariffs being implemented, as a lot of manufacturing companies are now having to raise their prices. That may affect their hiring practices regarding outsourcing work to third-party companies like mine. We’ll see how that goes. These federal government policies are going to change the landscape for the next four years.

How is AI changing your business?

The AI frontier of technology has taken over the planet. What I mean by that is there are opportunities for small and medium-sized businesses to utilize a lot of different AI tools. In terms of price, it’s a lot cheaper for them to deploy some of these AI tools. It will require them to invest more man-hours to start using these tools and enabling this new functionality, but it doesn’t take a lot of money. So they can do more with less because now they’ve got the tools at their disposal at a lower price point. 

The second factor is that they can outsource to companies like mine because we have different tools and shortcuts that can enhance their toolsets.

What strategies have been most effective in driving business growth?

For us, we’re a bit more strategic. We have memberships in a few different local chambers and business organizations here in New Jersey. One is the New Jersey Business & Industry Association. We’re also part of our county chamber, which is the Princeton Mercer Chamber of Commerce, the African American Chamber of Commerce, and the New Jersey Tech council, which is called TechUnited. We’re part of those four organizations, which gives us visibility in four different ways. 

On the flip side of that, we’re also partners with Microsoft and HP. We’re trying to create more alliances with other partners. We stay in our lane regarding our core offerings to clients, whereas some of these partners have other offerings.

What are some of the most exciting opportunities for your company in New Jersey?

We are part of the TechUnited organization, and they have a lot of things going on regarding the governor’s $1 billion initiative for AI for New Jersey. We’re looking for some future opportunities on that front. 

For our business, we would like to open data centers that we would own and operate in the future. Perhaps there will be some state funding or grants to help us get that off the ground in an Opportunity Zone like either Trenton, Camden, or Newark.

It’s also about connecting to three different entities: chambers of commerce, local colleges, and the state government. Those are the three we’re looking at for future relationships.

Are you seeing more opportunities for the tech industry in the state or in the tri-state region?

We’re seeing that. I’ll give you three examples. From the Hollywood perspective, two new studios are being built in New Jersey: one at Fort Monmouth in Eatontown and one in Newark. The one in Newark is going to have a train line from the airport in Newark to their station on the southwest side of Newark. That industry is going to be a pretty big thing in New Jersey for two reasons: they’re going to need more technology, and they’re going to need more data centers. They’re also bringing more business to the state with the various vendors that will follow them here. That’s one industry, and there’s a tech component to that conversation. 

Second, our state has several pharmaceutical companies, and they’re always looking to bring in technology people, not so much from the IT perspective, but from that engineering and pharma or biotech perspective. That’s an industry that has never done badly in the state of New Jersey. That will continue. 

Then there’s telecom. We have a bunch of telecoms here on the IT front. They’re always going to do well in this state. Overall, there’s always been growth happening in those three industries.

What is your outlook for the next two to three years?

We want to invest in making New Jersey a bigger technology hub. I think AI is going to be a leapfrogging opportunity. When we say AI, that encompasses different things. From a data perspective, we’re going to need more data centers. With that data center conversation on the hardware side, there will need to be discussions on clean energy and how they go about that in New Jersey. That’s a big part of the AI conversation.

The second side of that is software. We are going to see more incubators from Rutgers and other schools. We’re going to continue to see those things growing, and hopefully, with more government grants and things of that nature, we’ll probably see a thousand more companies in the next couple of years as a result of those initiatives.

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