CTI Technology Named August 2026 Business of the Month by Home State Bank and Star 105.5

Big Thanks to Home State Bank and Star 105.5 for the Recognition! 

Home State Bank and Star 105.5 have named CTI Technology the August 2026 Business of the Month, a recognition the two organizations give to one local company each month. The program honors businesses for reflecting the values of the communities they operate in and for setting a standard other local enterprises can measure themselves against.

Earlier honorees this year include a frozen yogurt shop, a tax and financial services practice, a solo law office, and a family tree farm. The list says a lot about how the program is judged, which has more to do with community standing than with revenue or headcount.

The Recognition Came From Outside the IT Industry

Most awards in managed IT services are handed out from inside the industry. Vendor partner tiers, channel rankings, and certification levels measure technical capability, and CTI holds several of them, including Microsoft Solutions Partner status, a HIPAA Seal of Compliance, and a listing with the Illinois State Bar Association as an approved IT provider for law firms. You can see the full list on our awards and credentials page.

A nod from a community bank and a local radio station measures something else. Home State Bank has served the region since 1915. Star 105.5 broadcasts across McHenry County and the northwest suburbs. Neither one evaluates firewall configurations. What they see is how a business conducts itself over time, and that is a harder thing to certify.

Twenty-Two Years Serving the Chicago Market

CTI Technology opened in 2004 and has worked the Chicago metro ever since, from our office on Technology Drive in Elgin and a second location in the city. Today we support businesses across more than 1,500 locations in the region, from Schaumburg and Naperville out to McHenry County.

Longevity is not especially common in this business. Providers get acquired, roll up into national platforms, or pivot to whatever service line carries the best margin that year. The firms that stay independent in one region for two decades usually do it by keeping clients rather than by winning new ones quickly.

Four Industries That Shaped How We Work

The Business of the Month write-up names the four industries CTI is best known for: law firms, medical offices, construction companies, and advertising agencies. Each one pushed us toward a different discipline.

1. Law firms brought confidentiality obligations under ABA Rule 1.6, along with the reality that a missing version of a court filing is a genuine emergency and not a ticket that can wait until Monday.
2. Medical offices brought HIPAA, which is why our team is trained on handling protected health information and why the HIPAA seal matters to us.
3. Construction companies brought job sites, which means connectivity, device management, and support for people working nowhere near a server room.
4. Manufacturing firms brought the shop floor: legacy equipment that cannot simply be patched, ERP systems that stop production when they go down, and networks covering the office and plant.

Those four sets of demands add up to a service model that holds up across industries. Confidentiality standards built for a law firm work fine for a construction company. Backup validation built for a medical office works fine for a manufacturing firm. 

The Chicago IT Support Behind the Certificate

New client relationships start with a kick-off assessment that runs 15 to 30 days and documents the environment end to end: network hardware and firewalls, how staff reach files on site and remotely, administrative privileges and multi-factor authentication across Microsoft 365, and whether backups have ever been tested against an actual restore.

Those assessments regularly surface the same findings. Administrative permissions handed out to people who never needed them. Active accounts belonging to employees who left two years ago. Endpoint protection with gaps nobody had noticed. Backup policies that exist on paper and have never been validated.

End users install one remote support tool, which takes under five minutes. Everything else deploys in the background while people keep working.

After onboarding, every client works with a dedicated account manager and meets with us quarterly for a Technology Business Review covering environment health, recurring ticket patterns, emerging threats, and upcoming budget decisions. Support is unlimited rather than billed per ticket or per hour, which removes the hesitation that keeps small problems from being reported until they are large ones.

Thank You to Home State Bank and Star 105.5

Thanks to Home State Bank and Star 105.5 for the recognition, and thanks to the clients across Chicagoland who have trusted us with their technology since 2004. Being named alongside the local shops, practices, and family businesses honored earlier this year is a good reminder of who actually keeps this region running.

Wondering Where Your Own IT Stands?

If you are not sure how your current setup would hold up under the kind of review described above, that is worth finding out before something forces the question. CTI offers a complimentary assessment of your network, access controls, and backup posture, with a written summary of what we find and what we would prioritize.

Call (847) 888-1900 if you’re in the suburbs or (312) 922-8600 if you’re in Chicago, or request your complimentary assessment online.