Jan. 11--BLACKSBURG -- The company president offered an invigorating take on his company's fortunes.

"Right now, we're looking to fill a dozen engineering and software development openings and, depending on future growth, we could have more opportunities that open up beyond that," said Pat Matthews of Mailtrust.

"We're defying the norm."

Job cuts have shaped public views of the current economic situation.

The encouraging counter is that some companies are growing even though the overall economy is not.

Some companies are finding fortunes on the Internet. Others are bringing out products and services in support of other, innovative technologies.

All while the economy is in a recession.

Here are a few examples from the New River Valley technology sector:

Mailtrust Inc.

Chief Executive Officer Matthews wants to add a dozen engineers and software developers at Mailtrust in Blacksburg -- not bad for the dark days of a recession.

The company provides e-mail and business software hosting to clients globally.

Mailtrust, formerly Webmail.us Inc., had five employees in 2004. Today it is a division of San Antonio-based Rackspace Inc., which earned $5.2 million, or 4 cents a share, on revenue of $138.4 million during the three months that ended Sept. 30.

Ninety Mailtrust employees and the division leadership are based in Blacksburg and focus on research, product development and strategy, while a like number work in San Antonio in sales and support.

Mailtrust doesn't release the number of clients it has. But the company offers several intriguing statistics for public consumption.

E-mail boxes up and running under company support: 750,000. Average number of e-mails processed per business day: 60 million.

Matthews said the outlook is positive. As companies and organizations shift to outsourcing their business software services, Matthews expects Mailtrust to grow.

Modea Corp.

In the same office complex off Prices Fork Road in Blacksburg as Mailtrust is Modea Corp., another business that is moving forward in spite of things.

The Modea team creates Web sites and much more for a stable of major national brands.

It sold baby products company Graco 16 Web sites in 15 languages for marketing to European consumers. Modea built a heavily used demonstration site for the T-Mobile G1, an Internet-linked phone with software by Google and hardware by High Tech Computer Corp. that was released in October.

Hasbro, Sharp, Seiko, ITT and Advance Auto Parts have used Modea, too.