Software
Company Finds Rural Niche
in Emergency Management
August
17, 2007 by Catherine Dominguez
Business Journal Article | Back
to PDS
San
Antonio-based Phoenix
Disaster Services
(PDS) has built its
client base by helping
city and county governments
be prepared for any
type of disaster.
And
as homeland security
continues to be a
critical issue for
many local and state
officials, Brian
Dopp, founder and
president of PDS,
says that reality,
along with a new
product offering,
is creating growth
opportunities for
his company.
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"Our
newest offering is
VIPlanning Software.
It is
aimed at helping school districts create HTML
disaster plans and visual blueprints of all
classrooms in each school..."
Link
to information
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Founded
in July 2001, PDS is a software
reseller specializing in
emergency management. The
company's services include
support, planning, grant
writing and grant management.
According
to Dopp, the company originally
targeted small rural governments
that had small budgets to
prepare a disaster plan for
their communities.
"I focused on the rural communities mostly due to the fact that they are
so strapped for people and need the help," Dopp says. "I offered to
go in (for a minimal fee) and help meet their needs."
Now
as the company has grown,
Dopp says it has expanded
its software offerings and
now acts as a consultant
for many agencies in Texas,
Kentucky and Missouri.
Currently,
PDS has four employees and
five contract employees.
The company serves anywhere
from two to 20 clients at
a time.
Although
Dopp declined to release
specific revenue figures,
he says the company is on
track to double its revenues
for 2007.
Up
and running
Medina County Judge Jim Barden says his county has
worked with PDS for about three years. He says several
years ago, the county didn't have an emergency management
coordinator and was looking for a way to update its
emergency preparedness plan.
"I
ran into (PDS) and I (asked)
if we could agree on a monthly
fee and they would act as
the emergency coordinator," Barden
says.
Barden
says PDS was instrumental
in the county developing
an emergency plan and for
recently winning a $130,000
grant to help fund the installation
of a countywide alarm system.
"They
completely redid our emergency
plan, brought it all up to
date," Barden says. "They
helped us immensely with
that."
Barden
says with the growth of PDS,
it made more sense for Medina
County to hire its own emergency
management coordinator and
for PDS to act as more of
a consultant.
Barden
says with the growth of PDS,
it made more sense for Medina
County to hire its own emergency
management coordinator and
for PDS to act as more of
a consultant. Now PDS works
on an hourly rate when the
county needs the company's
expertise.
"I
will forever be grateful
for their help," Barden
says.
Spurring
growth
PDS got its first big growth spurt following the 911
terrorist attacks. Dopp says many larger companies
and governments began contracting with his company
for help in designing disaster management plans.
PDS
licenses several software
products that it customizes
and supports for clients.
PDS's signature product, WebEOC, has helped boost
the company's presence in the security arena. WebEOC,
developed by Georgia-based Emergency Services integrators
(ESi), is a software program that allows programmers
to link an unlimited number of departments within
an agency so they are able to communicate live and
in real-time during a disaster. The software tracks
what is happening, where problems exist, where employees
are, what they are doing and what resources are available.
The software, hardware and implementation service
for WebEOC starts at around $50,000.
PSD
newest product offering
- VIPlanning Software
Helping fuel continued growth for PDS, is its newest
product offering, called VIPlanning Software. Dopp
says his company began offering the software about
four months ago. This software is aimed at helping
school districts create disaster plans and visual
blueprints of all classrooms in each school.
VIPlanning
Software, created by Washington-based
Visual Imagry Inc., enables
the user to create Web pages
that can be used to build
emergency response plans
and pre-plans for preparedness,
response, recovery and/or
training.
The
cost of an academic license
for the VIPlanning Software
is $1,000 per school. However,
if a district has multiple
schools, Visual Imagry offers
VIPlanning Enterprise license
that will link them all together
for an additional licensing
fee*.
"I
thought this was definitely
a product schools could use," Dopp
says. "You don't know
what you are getting into
(in a disaster situation),
this definitely helps you
see that."
Another
feature of the software is
to alert school officials
to hazards near a campus
such as pipelines, floodplains,
or railroad tracks for the
transportation of hazardous
materials.
Phoenix
Disaster Services
President: Brian Dopp
What: A software reseller specializing in emergency
management
Tel.: 210-657-0580
Web address: www.pdstx.com
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