Hello, I am Gary Keating co-owner of Drafting Equipment Warehouse (DEW). I would like to introduce you to our business and our friendly staff who process your orders.
My wife Sandra and I founded DEW in September 1994. DEW is a Limited Liability Company registered through the State of Arizona Corporation Division since 1994. That was a time in history when the advancement of electronics was really beginning to impact the business world. Cell phones were no longer the domain of the professional class such as doctors, lawyers, sales executives and bankers. In 1993 Motorola introduced their famous ‘brick cell phone’. It soon became the rage of the common man and woman on the go. Again, 1994 was six years before the early beginnings of the internet and four years before the founding of Google. Our store was obviously brick and mortar only.
In October 1999, my son Brad came to me very concerned about our future business operations. He insisted that we needed to make our excellent inventory of drafting supplies, equipment and drafting furniture available to the whole nation. This could be done by building a website that could be accessed by customers in the US, coast to coast. My son was and is a computer whiz with more than an adequate programming background. His advice was very timely and well received and he developed our first website. We went live on January 20, 2000, avoiding any feared issues with Y2K. Y2K was a supposed event that was going to occur January 1, 2000. This predicted event would collapse the existing internet. By the way, it did not happen.
Drafting Equipment Warehouse was not the first online drafting supply store. There was one other ahead of us but it was removed from the Internet within one year of our appearance. By 2001, we were the only online site with drafting equipment and supplies offerings. As years went by others joined the internet-marketing giving us several competitors. None of our current competitors have been online as long as we have. We are the pioneers.
In my next blog I will share some of my personal history. Without God blazing the trail ahead of us, none of this would have happened.