The HCSS Story

HCSS started in 1986, not in a garage, but in a bedroom that served as the master bedroom, nursery for a newborn baby, and the HCSS office. Mike Rydin, HCSS President and the only employee, thought that he could actually run the business with the baby in the nursery. That lasted about two weeks before the baby was moved off-site to day care.

Within a couple of years, HCSS hired a programmer named Carl and expanded into the entire house. Mike’s father would come home from his senior citizen group in the afternoon and have to sit in the living room until Carl left his bedroom. Carl made the DOS version of HeavyBid such a dominant product.

HCSS Begins Offering 24/7 Instant Support

Ben, a Support Technician, takes a support call after finishing a 5K run.

Mike had previously worked in the estimating department of a large heavy construction company and knew the importance of bidding and time crunches. As a result, in 1986 he started the very unusual concept of 24/7 support for his estimating software, later to be named HeavyBid. There were many times when he took support calls in the dark from his bed in the middle of the night. Today HCSS still offers 24/7 instant support to over 3,500 customers.

HeavyJob Introduced at a User's Meeting

In 1998 Mike sold 25 percent of the company to the employees via an ESOP (Employee Stock Ownership Plan) with the idea of getting HCSS employees to think like owners. Carrying this concept into the HCSS construction customer base, HeavyJob was developed to give foremen more information and responsibility to manage their own work. When the program was introduced at the 1998 HCSS Annual User’s Group Meeting, you could hear a pin drop because nobody thought foremen would be using laptops to enter their daily information. Nevertheless, HeavyJob went mainstream in 2005, and today there are thousands of foremen entering their field information, comparing with the estimate, and forecasting their future needs with the tools provided by HeavyJob.

Magnet Boards go Digital with The Dispatcher

A screen shot of an electronic magnet board.

As Mike visited customers he noted that most still had magnet boards or dry erase boards for their dispatchers to keep track of their equipment and/or labor. So in 2004, HCSS came out with The Dispatcher to duplicate all of the functions of a magnet board along with many more. Today, The Dispatcher still retains its basic simplicity, but now has the ability to map your entire fleet with Microsoft MapPoint®, schedule your resources—including trucking and materials—and looking up move history. The Dispatcher can now integrate with GPS giving you the ability to locate equipment, deter theft and get productivity analysis reports. The Dispatcher also integrates with HeavyJob to pass resource information back and forth between your dispatchers and your foremen/superintendents.

HCSS Today

In 1989, HCSS moved into its first office building, and the company has continued to expand ever since. In August 2009, HCSS moved into its own 45,000 square foot campus in Sugar Land, Texas, with top-notch facilities for our customers and employees.

The HCSS product line has continued to grow as well. In 1986, HCSS had one product, HeavyBid. Now contractors can take advantage of over a half-dozen products to help their company improve their business operations. Click here to learn more about HCSS products and how they can benefit your company.