Built for small businesses who are tired of flying blind.

ShawTech PGH started with a simple question: how are small businesses supposed to defend themselves when attacks keep getting more frequent and more complicated? Over the last decade, attackers have learned that small businesses are often high-value, low-security targets. Owners care deeply about their work, but they usually don't have the time or budget to become security experts on top of everything else.

Most small businesses end up with a limited set of choices. They can hire a full-time IT specialist, outsource to an IT company that juggles a lot of clients, sign up with an expensive MSP, or go fully DIY. In reality, a lot of owners go the DIY route and hope for the best. They're flying blind with little visibility into what's actually happening on their systems day to day.

ShawTech PGH, LLC was created to give those businesses another option. Instead of vague reports, surprise bills, or “trust us, it's handled”, the goal is simple: help owners understand where their systems are weak, what needs to be hardened or upgraded, and what the overall health of their IT looks like right now.

Who ShawTech PGH is for

ShawTech PGH is for owners and managers who want their business to be safe from remote threats and hidden problems that could shut them down or cause serious damage. Many of them have looked at traditional IT and security options and struggled to justify the hundreds or thousands of dollars involved, usually spread across a stack of different tools and services.

You don't need another complicated platform to babysit all day. You need clear, honest visibility and a way to see your risks in plain English. That's what the Proactive Grid Hub is designed to provide.

What makes ShawTech PGH different

A lot of IT companies and MSPs speak in dense technical language. They might tell you that your POS system is exposed to remote code execution or that your website is vulnerable to SQL injection. It's accurate, but it doesn't really help a busy owner understand what's at stake.

ShawTech PGH takes a different approach. Instead of throwing jargon at you, we explain what's happening in real terms: someone could remotely install malicious software on a customer-facing system, or use your website to damage live systems. Then we talk through the options to lock those weak spots down.

The focus is on awareness and understanding for everyone, no matter how much IT experience they have. The goal isn't to scare you into bigger contracts. It's to make sure you know what's going on in your environment and what can be done about it.

Why this work matters

Small businesses are the heart of communities and the backbone of any economy. When a small business takes a big hit — ransomware, data theft, or a preventable outage that wipes out a weekend's revenue — it doesn't just hurt a balance sheet. It affects owners, staff, families, and neighborhoods.

ShawTech PGH exists to reduce those risks as much as possible. If we can help keep even a few businesses from going through that kind of loss, the work is worth it.

A bit about the founder

The person behind ShawTech PGH has been fascinated with computers since the late 1990s, when pressing a spacebar for the first time turned into a lifelong habit of figuring out how systems work. Over the years, that curiosity grew into a deep understanding of how different pieces of technology fit together.

Around 2010, that interest shifted more heavily toward security. Working for multiple IT service companies and managed service providers brought a lot of hands-on experience with real-world incidents and day-to-day issues, as well as conversations with owners and managers who shared what they loved and disliked about typical IT support. Many of their frustrations directly informed how ShawTech PGH operates today.

How ShawTech PGH works with you

In a perfect world, every new customer would get a full, in-person walkthrough of their environment before anything else. That isn't always realistic, so the Proactive Grid Hub is built to pull back as much meaningful information as possible without adding extra risk or workload for the business.

Systems report in securely, the hub organizes what it sees, and you receive straightforward reports on where things look healthy and where they don't. ShawTech PGH is based in Pittsburgh, and a separate in-person deep-check service for local businesses is on the way. The idea is to combine the reach of a remote platform with the care and focus of a local visit when it's needed.

Pittsburgh roots, built for anywhere

ShawTech PGH, LLC is based in Pittsburgh, and the name reflects that. The “PGH” also stands for Proactive Grid Hub — one place to see the health and security of your entire IT grid.

The way we talk about it is shaped by the city too: bridging security gaps, keeping defenses steel-strong, and watching over the three rivers of risk that matter most to small businesses — devices, vulnerabilities, and downtime.

Even though the mindset is very Pittsburgh, the Proactive Grid Hub itself is built for small businesses wherever they are. If you want clear, honest visibility into your systems without the usual jargon and sales pressure, you're in the right place.