Lee Neubecker, president of BuzzBoltMEDIA, has succeeded in his chosen field by keeping it fluid and running with new opportunities that present themselves.
Neubecker launched BuzzBolt in January 2000. "When I started the business I knew that it would evolve in time, so I didn't want to be over-specific," he said. "At first we wanted to create a huge database that had a comprehensive list of events, and I wanted to partner with media outlets, portals, and so on, to be the back end for aggregating all the content. Also to be able to provide small papers like Windy City Times to make money off their events and classifieds without having to staff them.
"Classifieds and event listings don't make any money, but if it was all an internet-based model, where someone logs on and punches in their credit card number, and they can buy prime placement, then it would work. My idea was that you could be in a coffee shop, call a 1-900 number, punch in your zip code, select a category of events and see everything that was happening within whatever number of miles you specified. When I first moved to Chicago, I had so much trouble finding out what was going on because there are so many papers here.
"As I started developing the prototypes of that, the stock market fell out. Everything changed radically. I didn't want other people investing in us and then run the risk of not being able to see it though.
"So I started a service company called BuzzBoltMEDIA.com to help companies go on the web and manage the content on their websites. That business really grew, and then 9/11 happened and people stopped spending money on investments for any major capital expenditures. We took a hit on that one.
"Then about four or five months ago I had a law firm ask me if I knew anyone who could recover some e-mails for a case they had. So I did that and realized I was pretty good at it. That's when I discovered this new growth area called 'Computer Forensics,' and so we shifted our service business more into that field; although we still develop our software tools.
"Computer forensics is reconstructing what happened by looking at a computer to find out what someone did. For example, Arthur Andersen may have shredded all their documents, but people like me were sent in to recover e-mails and look at the computer logs to find out what someone really did.
"So what drives this side of our business is litigation, divorce, and things like that. I'm a computer detective. That's where my IBM Thinkpad laptop comes in. Last month I had to fly to Florida to recover data off a computer. They wouldn't ship it up here because the client that went bankrupt wanted to hold on to the computer to make it available for court orders. So I had to travel down there, pull the data off the computer and image it onto a DVD.
"To do that I needed a powerful laptop that could process everything fast. I'm also hard on equipment, I tend to break things easily, and the IBM Thinkpad has been the most durable of all the laptops I've had. I've had excellent service with it."
Born in Detroit, Neubecker has an MBA in High-Tech Marketing and a graduate degree in Financing and Accounting, meaning that in securities litigation cases involving the stock market or bankruptcy, he can not only search for data but also understand how to read the financial statements as well.
Depth of Experience …
"The reason I'm so skilled in the area of computer forensics is because I've had a computer since I was 12, so I've grown up with so many different operating systems, going back to TI-994A, IBM, Commodore 64, Apple, and Amiga. So I know all these old systems, and sometimes, if someone bought a computer 15 years ago and are still using it, I have to pull data off them. You can't go to a class for six months and become certified as a computer forensics examiner. It takes a depth of experience to do that kind of work.
"I am a part of a secret-service task force for computer crimes, and I'm also involved in some law enforcement private companies. It's interesting to be working with some of these people," said Neubecker, who also volunteers for—and donates to—numerous professional and GLBT groups.
