Business Spotlight: Executive Data Control

Owners: Stephen and Nancy Visio

Founded: 1967

Address: 4331 W. Calhoun St., Springfield, MO 65802

Phone: (417) 886-2693

Fax: (417) 886-7741

Web site: www.executivedatacontrol.com

Products/services: Design of digital business forms, document management and turnkey marketing solutions

Employees: 18

2007 Revenues: $4.17 million

Executive Data Control was founded ahead of the curve in 1967.

In the late 1960s, computers were few and far between, but when the computer revolution hit in the next decade, Executive Data Control was ready.

“We started out selling computer supplies, basically providing anything computer programmers needed to do their jobs,” says Stephen Visio, who became company president in 2003.

The $4 million company now specializes in designing digital business forms and aiding clients with document management. Where companies used to order boxes of printed forms, such as invoices and labels, more companies are now accessing the forms digitally as needed.

Still, Visio adds, “For all the technology out there, and how everyone wants to get rid of paper, there’s still a shocking amount of paper being used.”

Family roots

The business runs in Visio’s family. His uncle, Jim Abernathy, founded EDC, and Visio’s father, Hank Visio, bought out Abernathy in 1969. Hank Visio joined the company after time in the U.S. Army, earning an accounting degree, serving as an auditor for the state of Texas and working as a system analyst selling paper-based accounting systems.

After buying EDC, “my dad befriended software companies in the ’70s and started selling forms that went along with their software systems,” Stephen Visio says.

Hank Visio, who is retired and declined to be interviewed, worked with companies in several industries to create computer forms when they replaced their typewriters.

“When they sold the systems, they’d refer the forms back to Dad,” Stephen Visio notes. “That happened in community banks, in pharmacies, heavy trucking equipment dealers, auto auctions, and as it turned out, Bass Pro Shops.”

EDC’s relationship with Bass Pro required the implementation of an e-commerce system, which led to an online system through which the retailer and others in EDC’s client base can order, proofread and ship products such as business cards with the click of a mouse.

A move into marketing

Visio says many of EDC’s applications have followed the trend and are now Internet-based.

The company’s latest evolution is a new division, EDC Marketing and Creative Group, which was added in 2007 and utilizes the talents of Art Director Jonathan Wilson.

“We’re giving turnkey solutions to corporate marketing departments as well as smaller companies that can’t afford marketing departments,” Visio says, noting that the marketing division specializes in online programs, collateral management, surveys and direct marketing.

Darrin Downing, co-owner and vice president of Midwest Pool & Spa in Springfield, said his company has worked with EDC for at least 14 years, with the latest focus on a program to gauge the satisfaction of Midwest Pool & Spa’s customers.

“(EDC has) come up with a direct-mail piece, a Web site for a survey, and (are) combining and collecting that data and giving us back reports,” Downing says, noting that he hasn’t yet begun receiving feedback.

Climbing the company ladder

Visio’s first jobs with the company were far removed from management.

As a teenager, he started out moving boxes in the storeroom, eventually becoming shipping clerk and then moving into accounting as he earned his marketing degree from Missouri State University. A few years into the accounting job, Visio left EDC when his family decided he needed some real-world experience.

“It was a good idea, because I had inappropriate power (at EDC) because of my last name,” Visio says, noting that he then spent a couple of years working for MCI and Positronic Industries.

In 1991, his wife, Nancy, got a job at EDC after an interview in which no one but Visio’s father knew who her husband was. Four months later, Stephen Visio rejoined the company, and he became chief operating officer in 1997.

In 2003, the Visios bought out Hank Visio, and Stephen Visio became president. His dad completely handed over the reins in 2007.

The company posted 10 percent growth last year, Visio said, with nearly $4.2 million in 2007 revenues.