When
November 1990:
the first known world wide web page was written. It was then that Terry Platt made plans to leave the hi-tech industry and start a field service using this new development: the world wide web. The field services business was predominantly paper and courier based at that time.
January 1991:
Terry Platt started a sole proprietorship, Collateral Asset Technologies, and offered a limited variety of field services and internet solutions while trying to develop “something more” using the world wide web. Some of the first customers for Collateral Asset Technologies were Greentree Financial, Ford Motor Credit and Harley-Davidson.
March 1992:
Developed advanced field management software for inventory verification.
For the next ten years the field services business continued to add clients while the research and development of software services for the industry had a few limited success stories but for the most part were abandoned – thus the rise and fall of Advanced RF Concepts, Mobile Online Magazine and others. One of the software products found favor with a small group of entrepreneurs and the development company, Offshore Software, Inc. along with rights to all software products were sold to the entrepreneurs.
February 2002:
Seeing success in the field services business to date, Terry Platt and Vickie Platt, decided to graduate from a sole proprietor to a corporation. Terry, finding it difficult to completely sever ties with his electronics and programming background opted for the name “Digital”, hence the name of the new corporation: Digital Field Services, LLC.
July 2005:
Created www.lossmitigation.us information center.
September 2006:
Created and hosted first field services industry online news source – www.TheRepReport.com
October 2006:
Created publishing company, Gulf Thunder Corporation, to assume continued development of field service technology and internet endeavors.
January 2007:
Began targeted internet recruiting efforts with dozens of sites. Representative site: Field Reps Wanted
May 2007:
Added property preservation services to field services.
July 2007:
At request of insurance industry, developed and hosted first internet training site for the field services industry, WebExam.
June 2008:
First online training class attended by 13 independent contractors. Established informal site, www.PropertyPreservationTraining.us, for Questions and Answers and casual learning environment.
December 2009:
Began organization of subsidiary, BamaREO, to specialize in Property Preservation and REO allowing Digital Field Services, LLC to concentrate on field contact services.
April 2010:
Contracted with education professionals to establish and direct new educational subsidiary.
May 2010: Gulf Thunder Corporation analyzes success of Digital Field Services, LLC websites and begins to offer independent contractors web hosting and promotion services allowing even closer relationships with our reps. Each rep site includes all the web tools we use in our business, such as:
- Photo storage
- Contact Management
- Reputation Management Tools
- Industry Snoopers™
- and other public and proprietary tools
Industry Snoopers™ is a trademark of Gulf Thunder Corporation.