
Picture-Directory.com began about 11 years ago when I was asked to put together a church
directory for our church. Our Pastor thought it would be nice to have a picture directory instead
of just a standard name and address book. I readily agreed, just knowing that this would be a snap.
I thought surely with all the software that is out there that I could find a program that would
make this easy... Well, I never found that "easy program", so I said,
"I'll create my own program!". There are many photo companies that will take
pictures for churches and other groups and provide them with a photo directory. But for
many reasons, cost for one,
frequency of updates, etc...., folks want to do it themselves.
Our congregation was really happy with the results of the directory and many people told me that
I should try and market the software. I thought, "Why not?". So initially, I started uploading
to various shareware
websites and I would get an occasional check in the mail to register the program. I named the
software after the church where I was a member at that time,
Grace Evangelical Free Church.
Thus, I called
the program, GEFC Directory.
During that time one of my customers, a former IBM employee,
as I am as well, wanted to work with me. I needed the help to support the product, so we came up
with an agreeable arrangement. He became the start of the support team and now we had the ability
to be a full service company and GEFC Directory started to be more than just a simple program written
for a single church. It has been a steady source of income ever since. It's now in it's
fourth release (GEFC Directory 2.2).
We received much positive feedback and suggestions for improvements to this program and wanted to
continue to enhance the functionality, expand the marketability of it, and offer related services,
like an on-line directory, as well....
So, about 7 years ago, We decided to start focusing more energy into this company... We had
the opportunity to work on the development of Picture-Directory Online (PD Online)
(The Online Pictorial Directory) with the largest church in Alaska and they were instrumental
in helping us understand the needs of a large church and we believe every requirement that
they had was addressed in the first version of PD Online. And they have been a
happy customer ever since.
In March of 2007, we had
the opportunity to begin working on, and completed in October of 2007, the second release of PD Online.
We worked with a very large privately-owned
land resource business that owns 500,000 acres of timberland and natural resources, has a global
network of sporting lodges, a comprehensive wildlife management division, a state-of-the-art
Southern yellow pine lumber facility, commercial and residential real estate,
ecological services including mitigation, conservation and species banking. This partnership has helped
bring the Picture-Directory.com company from primarily a church products and services company to a full
service organizational directory company for any type of organization; employee, law firm, government,
school, church, fraternity, membership, or club, etc.
So Welcome to the future of Organizational Directories for Any Type of Organization!
We know that a good product becomes a great product when you listen to your customers,
and so we are listening! Any suggestions are welcome! If you have a moment
drop
us an email.
To His Glory,
Keith D. Bartman
Software Engineer
Founder of Picture-Directory.com