DAPHNE, Alabama -- A lot can happen in five years.

In 2007, brothers Abe and Carl Harper were hard at work and enjoying the successes of their company, Harper Technologies LLC, with several high-profile customers under their belt including Wells Fargo and Learning Tree International.

The company, started in 2002, builds, repairs and customizes personal computers, and offers Web site design and maintenance, networking, data backup, software support and printer repair services.

The business that now gives the brothers a steady paycheck, helped put Carl through college on someone else's dime. Based on his work while still at Daphne High School, Carl, now 23, got scholarships that covered half of his expenses at the University of Alabama.

He graduated with highest honors, earning a degree in business management in December 2010.

With a brick-and-mortar office in Daphne as well as a satellite office in Tuscaloosa to service contracts in central and northern Alabama and northeastern Mississippi, Harper Technologies has weathered the economic downturn.

A private company, Harper Technologies does not reveal annual sales or profit, but the brothers said annual revenue has grown by at least 30 percent every year since 2007, and 40 percent or better in the last two years.

"We heard a lot of references to people losing business because sales were down," Abe, 29, said of the dip in the economy in 2008. "As the economy slowed, our sales number went down but our service numbers went up."The company's profit margin on services and repairs rose at a time when many businesses were struggling to stay afloat. Customers opted to fix what they had rather than buy a new product, Carl said, providing the company a huge benefit.

"It's a very favorable situation for the customer and us," Abe said of the shift to more repairs. "It shows an established confidence between the customer and our ability and our services."The company didn't escape the downturn unscathed. Its office in Tallahassee, Fla., closed, and its client list shrink.

But the Gulf oil spill in 2010 provided a boost via a contract to deliver, install and maintain computer equipment used at catastrophe claims centers stretching from Bay St. Louis, Miss. to Crawfordville, Fla.

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Brothers build on success at Harper Technologies