Most people wouldn’t think twice about a two-tone gray office building south of Kalispell, but walk through two sets of locked, double doors and find your way into the server room and you’ll know something is up. Inside the temperature-controlled space stands two rows of computer servers holding millions of records, names, numbers and addresses.
This is the heart and soul of Merlin Information Services, a company that gathers and sells data and information about people and businesses, which it has been doing for 20 years.
Todd Twete, vice president of sales and marketing for Merlin, said it’s often easier to describe the company’s customers, which includes law enforcement, private investigators and websites where people can buy background checks, than the company itself. Merlin obtains the personal information from other companies or public record. Once the company gathers and catalogs the data, it is available to Merlin’s customers and subscribers. Although the data collection is at times hard to describe, it keeps growing and Twete said Merlin strives to find a competitive edge.
“Data is becoming a commodity and I’m going to have to find something unique about my service (to stay competitive),” Twete said.
Merlin Information Services was started in 1991 by Mike Dores. At the time Dores was simply compiling and selling CD-ROMs of information gathered from the state of California, where the company was founded. As the company grew, Dores made a risky move to Montana. While much of the data industry is centered in places like California, Florida or Washington, Montana is far off the beaten path.
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Todd Twete, vice president of sales and marketing, stands between the two long rows of servers containing terabytes of information at Merlin Information Services in Kalispell. |
“That was a gutsy move because the Internet wasn’t as big and he would’ve probably been better off in California than in Montana,” Twete said.
But the move paid off in the long run and Twete said the company hasn’t had any trouble finding what he called the “right recipe,” especially when it comes to employees, including Kurtis Oliverson.
Oliverson has been with the company for more than a decade as a network programmer and spends his time creating software that makes the information Merlin gathers and stores on dozens of servers available to the more than 4,000 customers that use the service. Twete said creating the software is a complex job and takes months to develop. Oliverson said part of the process is good communication, especially when creating complex computer programs.
“We all have to make sure we’re on the same page, at the same time,” Oliverson said.
Oliverson has been working on new software Twete hopes will help the company expand next year. Currently, two new programs are being developed aimed at private investigators and debt collectors. Both programs will be “specific to their needs and workflow.”
With new products on the horizon, Twete said Merlin is looking to expand in the years to come and there are no plans to leave Montana.
“We’ve got plenty of space to put more people and hopefully that will happen,” Twete said. “We have growth plans. We’d love to see the size of the company double.”