by Kirby Lee Davis
The Journal Record July 26, 2007

TULSA – With revenues surging, and 65 percent of its business now coming from out of state, Oklahoma Digital Forensics Professionals will soon reposition itself for national expansion.

By 2010, President Gavin W. Manes projects drawing $90 million in revenue from seven branch offices, and that’s just from services. The Tulsa-based company intends to augment that with a product licensing arm targeting both government and corporate clients.

That represents a major leap for a four-year-old company that closed out 2006 with double-digit revenue growth to $186,000. Manes attributed it to a budding national reputation built in a fastgrowing industry. Known by its acronym DFP, Oklahoma Digital Forensics Professionals just tripled its headquarters space to 2,500 square feet to handle its increasing caseload, with teams working in New Orleans, Alabama and Arkansas.

“I could not have survived this summer without the interns,” he said, referring to a new program to test and groom prospective employees. “The workload was just too great.”

Manes – who continues to teach full-time at the University of Tulsa, where as a student he started this firm – projects $1 million revenue this year. He attributes that five-time increase to delivered results and word of mouth.

“You beat them severely in court, and you think that would make them mad at you,” he said of law firms, noting many have fallen behind not just in their understanding of digital forensics, but also in compliance with court regulation. “But no, they go out and hire you.”

Having spent a year developing a business plan he equates to a McDonald’s franchise model, Manes intends to formally rebrand his company this year as part of his expansion program focusing on secondary cities across the U.S.

“No one seems interested in serving so many of these smaller markets that we can capture,” he said. “We plan on owning these markets.”

He anticipates building a spoke and hub structure, with branch offices of salespeople and field workers feeding evidence and other detailed work to the Tulsa headquarters. Branch locations will hinge in part on which ones prove more cost-effective to serve with a physical presence as opposed to employee air travel from Oklahoma’s second-largest city. Meeting legal requirements, insurance and other costs also factor in.

Building the licensing arm will help DFP bring its forensic patents to commercial life with the help of venture capital firms and other partners. Under primary development are electronic redaction tools fine-tuned for government applications, as well as “container” software to monitor file and data changes.

DFP now employs a Tulsa staff of 11, plus three part-time interns pursuing further education. Manes anticipates adding more interns as the company fills the Mid-Continent Tower’s 17th floor. He expects that space will sustain its growth through the next 16 months. For now, he also subleases space to the law firm Aamodt & Wright.

“We’ll be able to evict them in about eight months or so,” he said.

Intent on keeping his company and its revenue in the Tulsa market, he foresees further expansion in Mid-Continent within two years. But he expects to draw more lasting benefits in support of that growth from an intern program that encourages a college education.

“I could pay them $32,000 and have an employee for life,” admitted the professor, who serves on the Tulsa Technology Center Cyber Security and Cyber Forensics Advisory Committee. “Or I could wait four years and pay them $65,000. It costs me more, but I would have a better employee.”

While his firm is not large enough to fund that education, he has helped students further their academics at TCC and Career Tech. That could prepare them to continue their education at his alma mater.

“Many of these kids never thought about going to college,” he said. “I told them that I came out of college $51,000 in debt. I will probably be managing payments of $287 a month for the rest of my life, and I’m happy to do that. It was worth leveraging the rest of my life for this.”

But to do it right, he encourages the interns he keeps to work only part-time.

“School should be at least 20 hours of the week,” he said. “If you want to work more than 20 hours, they know that may get you fired. I don’t know legally how I can do that, but if their school work suffers I will and they know it.”

Manes also has taken steps to make sure he remains focused. With this rebranding effort he intends to hire more executives to watch over DFP’s business.

“I prefer the research role,” he said, noting how integrating computers into everyday life has
dramatically increased the scope and demands of his field. “I like dealing with intriguing
problems.”