HCD was founded by Bob Helfant. Bob has drawn on 30 years of Information Technology (ITS) and Purchasing experience and expertise to create a combined approach to consulting that saves you money and time, and ensures the stability and ease of use of your technology.

As owner and primary consultant for HCD Tech, I have provided a broad range of services for a variety of businesses located in Los Angeles County. Over the course of the last 20 years, I’ve assisted more than 60 businesses with technology planning, decision making, and purchasing as well as managing clients’ technology services, providing management with the information and expert advice needed to make strategic technology decisions and managing and directing internal IT staff.

Senior consultant Paul Petach has extensive experience in multiple IT areas including Network design, implementation & administration, configuring and managing a variety of servers, workstations, LANs, WANs using a huge selection of software, automating warehouses and the list goes on. He has opened remote offices for clients in Hong Kong, New York and California, plus project management, training & documentation, cost analysis and product research & analysis.

Projects (partial list)

  • Re-engineered Data, set up and supported Data and Exchange Servers and all workstations in an office where technology stopped functioning about once a week, into a system that has not had any unscheduled down-time in 16 years (Movie Production Company, Santa Monica).
  • Managed technical components of office relocation and company growth, along with the design and launch of website which included moving over 3,000 items in print catalog to the website (High-End Fixture Manufacturer, Wilmington).
  • Replaced network, Server System and workstations to stabilize office where business stopped regularly due to technology failures (Insurance Company, Torrance)
  • Reviewed and replaced hardware, software, licenses, contracts, technology requirements and purchase practices where they were found to be of the scope of “best practice” specifically where it relates to security, cost, unscheduled server or user down-time and data recovery in case of system failures (Veterans’ Rehabilitation Facility, Santa Monica).
  • Designed and implemented all technology at Art Center including cabling, server design and configuration, replacement of all workstations, installation of all software applications, network security, and creation of a digital photo lab classroom with 10 workstations (Rancho Palos Verdes).
  • Assist with technology planning, decision making, purchasing and regular maintenance for over 25 businesses in Los Angeles County.

Key member of the team that took Mail.com/EasyLink Services, Inc. (NASDAQ symbol EASY) from start-up to the forefront of the Internet Messaging space.

Operations

  • Created and managed MIS department, which supported all employee infrastructure, including LAN, WAN, Internet connectivity, software including Oracle Financials, hardware, and phones, through period of tremendous growth (i.e., 9 employees in 1996 to over 1200 in Q4, 2000)
  • Created and managed Purchasing department, which ramped up over 3 years to $50,000,000 per year in POs.
  • Negotiated all major vendor contracts including EMC, Oracle, Sun, GTE, WorldCom, Lucent, Sprint, Exodus and AT&T.
  • Negotiated all office space leases including 140,000 sq feet in NYC, 100,000 sq feet in NJ, 2000 sq feet in San Francisco, 4000 sq ft data center at Telehouse, 2000 sq ft data center at Exodus and 4500 sq ft data center at AT&T facility.
  • Managed industry-leading Customer Support team.
  • Oversaw all aspects of designing and building secure, computer, clean rooms.

Business Development

  • Established partnerships and negotiated deals with companies including Oracle, AT&T, EMC, Yahoo, Excite, Lycos, Geocities, DoubleClick and others to increase EasyLink’s visibility and member base.
  • Initiated and implemented banner marketing strategy from the creation of banners to tracking their performance, which quadrupled signups at EasyLink.
  • Led the company in developing initiatives to create new Top Level Domains which included responding to the Postel draft, signing the gTLD-MoU, and participating in the formation of the new IANA and ICANN.
  • Managed Domains department, which tracked, purchased, and sold domains from our portfolio of over 1500 properties.
  • Participated in IPO team that drafted, edited and filed S1 prospectus.

Created multimedia CD-ROM distribution and publishing company in July of 1990 with initial capital investment of $90,000. Coordinated all aspects of company start-up including general administration, hardware/software acquisition, staffing, sales and development of marketing channels, plus initiation and management of publishing activity.

Co-founded and managed the first dedicated national CD ROM distribution and CD-ROM retail company. Coordinated all aspects of company start-up including general administration, hardware/software acquisition, staffing, sales, sales training and development of marketing channels. Wrote first PC media player software and first music database software.