Will Guidry

Background

About Will Guidry

I received a license to practice Architecture in the state of Texas in 1989 and was self-employed for 14 of the next 15 years, until 2004. Over the years I became what some considered an expert in Retail Interior Design, especially optical retailers like TSO (Texas State Optical). I worked on such projects in Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Arkansas, Oklahoma, New Mexico, Arizona, Colorado, California, Oregon and places I've now long forgotten. Around 2002 I found myself getting burned out and decided to return to school to study programming, something I had always been interested in. After two years of night classes I happened to have a conversation with Rick Roberts at ATS Engineers and Inspectors. Rick and I had worked together on numerous projects. By the end of the conversation I had a new job as I.T. Department Manager. In addition to managing our small (at the time) network my main mandate was, as Rick simply said, to "automate our inspections department." Over the next 12 months I developed a set of client / server applications that completely replaced the existing methods of scheduling and performing code inspections. Everything went digital, including the three-part paper forms the inspectors used. We outfitted the inspectors with tablets (which at the time were new to the market) and wireless internet devices (which were also primitive at the time). Office staff scheduled inspections in the new system and inspectors performed them digitally on their tablets, which synchronized with the server. We had five inspectors then. We now have over 30, and the company has grown from about 20 when I started, to nearly 120 now. Over the years I've added numerous features to the system, such as pricing, P.O.s, automated invoicing, automated client notifications, master forms management, automated updates, inspection analytics and more. We still use the system today. In 2017 we performed over inspections, energy tests and plan reviews using it.