An Augusta native on Tuesday was presented the U.S. Small Business Administration's 2007 Small Business Person of the Year award for the District of Columbia.

Nicholas V. Christiansen, the president and chief executive officer of Eagle Technologies Inc., a security company, also served as the keynote speaker at the annual SBA awards breakfast at the Ronald Reagan Building.

Mr. Christiansen, a 1978 graduate of T.W. Josey High School, founded the company in 1999 after having spent the past two decades working in the security and protective services industry.

He said Tuesday during a telephone interview from his offices in Lanham, Md., that he never set out to be an entrepreneur, but that it eventually happened because of his "strive for achievement and promotion."

"As soon as I got tired of the current job I was in, I was seeking promotion," he said. "If it was the next level up, I wanted it."

Mr. Christiansen was in the ROTC program at Josey and, after graduation, at Valdosta State University. After service in the U.S. Air Force, he went to work for Wackenhut Services Inc., the contract security force for Savannah River Site, eventually becoming the company's first black operations manager for a Department of Energy installation.

He was head of contract security operations at the Energy Department headquarters in Washington before moving to two private security companies, the latter of which he served as company president.

In 1999, he and a partner founded Eagle Technologies, which today has $20 million in annual contract revenue and 600 security officers from Massachusetts to Puerto Rico.

His contracts include the Federal Aviation Administration, U.S. Coast Guard, BAE Systems and the Environmental Protection Agency.

"This award, quite honestly, is a testament that, yes, we are doing a good job," Mr. Christiansen said. "If you hold out long enough and work hard enough, you can be recognized for the level of work you are doing."

Eagle Technologies also received the Department of Homeland Security's 2006 Achievement Award.

He said he returns to Augusta to visit his mother, Betty Joseph, and his aunt, Peggy Rhodes, about twice a year. Mr. Christiansen and his wife, Angela, also an Augusta native, live in Fredericksburg, Va., with their three children.