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FORT COLLINS - It all started when a father asked his son a favor.
Could he create a better software program to help dad more efficiently manage his beer distributorship?
That request from Kent O'Neil to his son, Jonathan, resulted in Encompass Technologies Inc., a Fort Collins company that specializes in developing software to help beverage distributors better track their products as they move from the warehouse into the marketplace.
Jonathan, then still a Colorado State University electrical engineering student, wrote the software program for his dad as his senior-year project.
"I wanted a program that basically could handle everything from the supplier to the retailer, including inventory, accounts receivable, general accounting - everything we needed to do," said Kent.
He said the route accounting software
program he'd been using often left many questions unanswered about the deliveries being made. But his son's program put those questions to rest.
"Today, we can track the minute (the product) hits the warehouse," he said. "The amount of detail we can provide an operation now is almost infinite."
The O'Neils, originally from Akron, founded Encompass in Fort Collins in 2001 with four employees. Since then, the company has grown to a staff of 24 in its Fort Collins office...