By 1999, we had over 20 years combined experience in "multimedia" production and the commercial arts. Though often satisfying, there was more often something missing from these projects: meaningful content. Our shared love of history and heritage travel sparked an idea: utilize emerging digital media technology to help record historic content and showcase it online—our goal: "preservation & presentation." Kerri suggested we name the company in line with our inspiration: "in heritage" to our inherited past.

We formed our initial plan while vacationing that summer on Vinalhaven Island, Maine (IH's spiritual birthplace). At a time when there were few digital archives, we set out to offer "mobile scanning services." We would bring hardware / software / know-how to localities and help them digitize existing public collections. In addition, we would help sponsor residential "scanning events," during which privately-held items would be digitally added to those collections already held in the public trust. These digital archives would provide communities a permanent record of irreplaceable history and resources for presenting their unique historical story online. We combined interactive design-production with information content-management in a turn-key operation. It was a worthy approach; but an idea ahead of its time that outpaced the budgetary challenges most small societies face.

A key to small business success is the ability to adjust and evolve. Through discussions generated by our "scanning service" promotions, we uncovered an unfulfilled need. The call for general web development services was at a fever-pitch in the late '90s. This was no less true within the historical community niche. But we had an immediate advantage over most developers: we had placed historical content at the core of our business. And we found a historical community wanting solutions geared towards depth, not surface-thin "brochure-ware" sites or templates that could just as easily be used for a hotel chain or car dealer. In addition, most budget-conscious societies were looking to do without the design agency price-tag. We put aside our scanners for the moment, and immersed ourselves in the world of HTML, Photoshop, Dreamweaver, and Flash.

We were quick to realize that our clients could come in all sizes, not just local societies. In step, we created custom-development project plans based on price-ranges—not fixed templates. Starting with the "Shaker," to our mid-road "Craftsman" & "Mission" plans, and on up to our enterprise plan: "Empire" (yes, we are architecture fans), we were able to match any budget to a custom development. This was a vital step in separating us from the pack: committing to custom-development. It allowed our clients to maintain a unique presence amidst the usual uniformity. Key to this budget-matching ability were the connections that we had made in the creative industries. We were surrounded by a talent-rich pool of professionals eager to fill roles we could not. Combining our own skill-sets with these "network associates" allowed us to mix-and-match teams across the arc of funding possibilities.

Ironically, our early client-partners were large organizations: National History Day, White House Historical Association, Supreme Court Historical Society, and U.S. Capitol Historical Society. But expansion of the mid-road "Craftsman / Mission" plans to include such things as: membership components, e-Commerce, rich-media, and the addition of "flex" options that allowed clients to start small and size-up in phases as budgets allowed were key to our work with FDR's Little White House Historic Site, Maryland Historical Society, DeKalb History Center, California Supreme Court Historical Society, independent historians, authors and documentarians.

By the mid-2000s, use of the Adobe Contribute content-management system revolutionized how we approached online development. Through the years we had given a bear-hug embrace to presentation advancements, such as: Flash ActionScript2, XHTML (and the dynamic use of XML, generally), "Web 2.0" apps, cloud-based satellite-sites, and even AS3 (prior to the Apple "dust-up"). But the advent of non-proprietary custom-developed CMS was more than an incremental step forward. It pushed us past our project-range approach and transformed our relationships with our clients: no longer just clients, but development team-members. Contribute, of course, only prefaced the floodgate of open-source CMS and for us the use of the Joomla! / WordPress platforms—which, along with the dynamic sophistication of javascript and the slow but sure coming of HTML5/CSS3 standards, informs our present approach to online development.

Though the technology has changed again and again (and will again), and our approach to delivering solutions and building relationships will continue to evolve, our central inspiration—custom development built around the presentation of historical content—has remained the hook on which we have proudly hung our hats since August 14, 1999, the day we purchased our domain name and officially set up shop.