Ed Sheehan long has seemed like the obvious choice as the next leader of Concurrent Technologies Corp.

While he officially took the title of CEO on Thursday, the promotion was never preordained.

Sheehan, a 15-year employee of the Richland Township-based company, was the only executive aside from Dan DeVos, retired president and CEO, to regularly be publicly visible. In recent years, Sheehan often has served as the company’s voice when it has faced unflattering media attention.

Howard “Skip” Picking, chairman of CTC’s board, said that Sheehan’s appointment was never a foregone conclusion. But the new top executive’s chances were improved by the fact that the board never felt it needed to look outside the company’s walls to find a successor to DeVos.

“We had an evolution of very qualified people,” Picking said. “We didn’t have to think very long. The internal creation of executives here has been wonderful.”

Sheehan said his goals were always the same – help the company to grow, enable employees to succeed, and ensure that the company and its employees remained involved in the community.

He felt that as long as he continued to pursue those goals, he would eventually attain his personal objectives.

“I know I wanted to be considered to be Dan’s successor,” Sheehan said. “But I also knew I had to work for it.”

Sheehan largely did that work as the company’s chief financial officer until the middle of last year, when he relinquished that title to assume the position of president. But even in his role as CFO, his job wasn’t limited to dealing with numbers and dollars.

His predecessor took care to place Sheehan in a number of challenging positions. For instance, Sheehan was the company’s head of governmental relations, a role in which he excelled.

“I wanted to see him get more involved with the operations side of the company,” said DeVos, who remains on the board of directors. “In response, he developed some processes that ensured he would be directly involved with the company’s operations.

“He has the personality, demeanor, the business ethics; he exudes what we want in a CEO. I think he will be outstanding.”

Sheehan also worked with DeVos in recent years to achieve an important landmark in the company’s growth.

Several years ago, CTC’s long-term planning targeted the reduction and eventual elimination of all directed funding it receives from U.S. Rep. John Murtha, D-Johnstown. Sheehan is proud to say that Department of Defense’s fiscal year 2009 budget includes no directed funds to CTC from Murtha.

“It’s something we needed to do, and I’m very proud to say we’ve accomplished,” Sheehan said. “That means of our $240 million of revenue, all of it is being generated without Mr. Murtha’s involvement.”

As CTC moves forward under Sheehan’s leadership, it will focus on four key areas of opportunity for growth: Alternative energy, cyber security, homeland security and health care. In addition to CTC’s current core business areas, Sheehan believes these market areas hold the best promise for growth for CTC.

“Diversification of revenues will be key for us moving forward,” Sheehan said. “That’s going to require greater ongoing strategic planning than we’ve had in the past.

“Dan had the task of taking over a start-up company and growing it for 20 years. We’re now at the point where we have been around long enough that we have employees who are retiring. So this isn’t necessarily something Dan wouldn’t have done, but it’s now the right time.”