Dis-Embarc’ing
Back in 2002, I joined a 15 person web design company called Keyware Internet Technologies. The company had recently been spun off from a larger corporation. It was disorganized and inefficient, had some unhappy clients and employees, but was producing some great work despite it all. Shortly after I joined, the Keyware brand was replaced by Embarc. The office moved. It moved again. Coworkers left. New coworkers arrived. Those coworkers left again.
Embarc won a stack of W3, WMA, and MITX awards. In addition to the award winning creative, we created interactive campaigns to support worldwide brands. We planned the architecture for mission critical web applications, and led their development efforts. We developed intergrated marketing systems that proved real ROI to our customers. Most importantly, customers enjoyed working with us. We worked as part of their team, and we helped solve some business problems. I know this because they took time to let us know how they felt.
In November 2007, Embarc was sold to a larger corporation based in Pennsylvania. The work we’ve done on the Internet will now be accompanied by expertise in branding and public relations. There is a great, exciting future ahead of this new, combined team. I stepped down from Embarc, now Garfield Group Interactive, to allow this new team to grow under new leadership. The news didn’t make Techcrunch, nobody was interviewed for their reaction, and the blogosphere remained utterly silent.
For my part, I am incredibly proud of the work we produced at Embarc. I worked with great people who came together as a team. We matured as a business and as individuals from those chaotic times in 2002. Thank you to the people who worked hard to make it possible. I will always remember my time there fondly. I write my last post on the topic of Embarc, 2002 – 2008.
