Heber Allred, the original developer and founder of PlanSwift, was working for a large lumber roof truss company in Nevada when he had the idea for PlanSwift. The genesis of PlanSwift was a 2004-2006 series of consulting agreements with contractors. The initial goal was to help them convert the piles of blueprints in their offices to a digital format to eliminate the clutter and 
provide instant plan storage and retrieval. Once the documents management system was in place and plans were easily accessible in digital form, many customers began requesting “digital takeoff” features for calculating measurements and material quantities on the computer screen by clicking points to trace areas, measure distances, and count items, instead of using paper plans. With this functionality in place, the product was launched as PlanSwift® in early 2007.
Tech Unlimited, Inc., the original company name for PlanSwift, was incorporated 01/05/2007 and PlanSwift was launched on the market at the same time. A year after starting Tech Unlimited Inc in January of 2007 and having some encouraging sales of his new software, Heber left the lumber roof truss company to market the product now known as PlanSwift.
The name was changed from Tech Unlimited to PlanSwift after their first sale. The first version of the software started at just $750. The first few employees to join the company were in the construction industry already and were customers of PlanSwift as well as being friends with Heber. They started an office based in Henderson, Nevada and started building the company from there.
After 2 successful years of selling the product the small PlanSwift team decided to expand the operations of the business as well as expand the capabilities of the software. Heber started a new office in Bountiful, Utah where he hired a local successful sales representative and businessman, James Purpura, who is currently the president of PlanSwift.
James started in the sales department and was largely responsible for the company’s doubling of their sales revenue every year up to today. Derrick Delquadro was also hired at this time and was a customer of Tech Unlimited Inc and wanted to be a part of the business. He started a sales team in his basement with just a few people before the office in Bountiful was set up.
Sales (Revenue) by year:
2007 – $0.7 million
2008 – $1.8 million
2009 – $2.45 million
2010 – $2.84 million
2011 – $3.66 million
2012 – $5.16 million
2013 – $7.3 million
2014 – $9.47 million
2015 – $ million (coming soon)
Number of Employees by year
2007 – 4
2008 – 15
2009 – 25
Executive Team
James Purpura – SVP and GM for PlanSwift
Bruce Hacking – VP of Operations
Darin Thomas – VP of Sales
Jeff Jensen – VP of Sales
Academic Program
PlanSwift originally started their academic program with a Pilot Program before the first two schools entered the official academic program in 2009. The student and university development programs were then formally launched in August of 2010.
The Academic Program includes:
- Complimentary software
- Course materials
- Ability to share plans with other students and associates
- PlanSwift certification at your school
- Alumni Discounts
- Once a student graduates they’re given a code to purchase PlanSwift at a discount.
The 3 different portals available to customers of the academic program are:
Professor Portal: Gives teachers a complimentary copy of PlanSwift to evaluate for the classroom.
Student Portal: Student receives a discount on a fully functioning version of PlanSwift
Educational Programs: Teachers incorporate PlanSwift in their classrooms.
PlanSwift versions
- 6.1 – Added estimating module, customized estimating column view, added hotkey toggle for ortho and snap, added snap to digitizer points, added automatic item numbering, added verify points when recording, added art tool, added auto-scale feature, digitizer record button moved to main toolbar, added export/import estimating tab
- Added network common tab, added parts and assembly tabs types, light bulb to hide/show digitizer, and load from template optimizing.
- 6.2 – Restricted reserved words for property names, added apply scale to all pages, optimized excel exporting, added ‘show item number’ to excel export from pages window, changed segments to linear total from segment count, and autoupdate for boise plugin.
- 6.3 – Optimized save routine, added show me how videos, added transfer licence, added PlanSwift welcome screen, PDF to TIF converter enhancement, added export framing area to BC framer, added sample painting templates, added sample carpentry templates, and updated export to Excel.
- 6.4 – Updated line entry totaling, added adjust point size in settings, updated PDF password compatibility, updated PLN overlay and loading, and added “auto save when moving nodes/sections” to settings.
- 7.1 – Updated scripts, update insert bid item, added width side and transparency to linear and segment objects, added load from template to right click menu, added apply button to “edit estimating item”, updated arc drawing, update linear and segment drawing.
- 7.2 – Updated date time conversion, minor update in window docking, update linear and segment drawing, updated printer configuration, updated printing, dimension tool update, added point in area to scripting, and updated print configuration.
- 8.0 – Updated image downsizing, updated dimension tool, optimized image downsizing, added saving of customized toolbar layout, added layout manager, added ability to recorder bookmarks, added setting to confirm when recording dimensions, combined master columns list and select columns list, added new functions to scripting, get property count (itemID) and get property, added “show me how” button, added “new part and new assembly” buttons to estimating item window toolbar, added ability to show units in the estimating window, added batch printing, added “view” tab in menu, added ability to browse when creating a new job, added ability to do formulas within formulas, added ability to do comparative overlays, added option for automatically remove licence when exiting, added “tell a friend” and “suggestion box” icons in help tab, added updates joist tool beam tool and generate totals tool, added ‘add parts’ form, added adjust column to properties.
- 8.1 –8.7 – Added roundup and rounddown to property formulas and scripting, added clear existing joists checkbox in joist tool, added drop down in estimating properties to insert, added measurement type to job properties, added add new page wizard, added select all and unselect all to print dialog, added COM objects, added Import and Export for items, added plugins manager, added page legend, added hotkeys for plugins, added print estimating tab, added CAL and DJVU file support, added snapshot button, added license manager, added rotate 180 button, added COM events, added select item form, added delete button for license manager, added exit button in application menu, added snap and ortho to status bar, added freehand option to status bar, added download to iPhone and iPod, PDF to TIF defaults to grayscale, added drag and drop from swiftmarket to estimating window, added refer a friend feature, Single click record/apply in templates sidebar, single click record in pages sidebar, added highlighter tool, added tool hint attribute on properties, added linewidth functionality to segments, added arcpoint functionality to segments, added estimating screen, updated iPhone integration, added On point deleted event in properties, New job wizard: improved loading time in select images page, added job loading dialog, added swift images functionality, added “go to page” functionality in pages window, added export/import plugin package, added German and Italian editions, Added default hotkey for ortho, added ‘show me how’ buttons to edit properties, added check to last auto-scaled setting in auto scale dropdown button, added color ability for storages, added remembering of custom colors in color dialogs, added overwrite ability when importing Swiftjob.
- 9.0 — 9.5 – Added ‘haschildren’ and ‘loadchildrenlist’ to item in COM, added refresh button to parts sidebar, added triangulate as a recordable page item. Added new job ex, get point, get line and get rect methods to COM, added job description to subject line when sending screenshots, added import excel template button to estimating tab, added attachments/import templates to new job dialog, new job wizard now remembers last storage location, added auto update/notification for license blocks, added ‘submit a bug’ to help tab, autocount wizard has been greatly changed, added first review of plugin updater, added additional support for the new plugin store, new page drop down on takeoff page, new takeoff type ‘units’ now shown on page navigator, new zoom to max button to support expanded region outside page, new scale factor displayed on pages for quick reference, new page size and measurement type displayed on pages for quick reference, new drag and draw operations for segments and linears for speed input, new enhanced ‘scroll/hovering’ with fast/slow modes, new max colorized margin indicators for scroll/hovering operations, new arrowheads now appears to dimensions, new add duplicate to takeoff items, new add duplicate to template sidebars/summaries, new added additional settings for dimensions, new expanded focused and selected nodes on sections, new settings options for ‘overtyping’ mode on estimate grid, new settings option for ‘disable job locking’, new add edit box to supply username when job locking is selected, new option to purge takeoff objects with area value of zero, added click and drag takeoff disable option.
- 10.0 – Added single click feature, added ability to drag and drop items and assemblies from estimate into the templates sidebar, added beam tool, added planswift class type returns string, and added sequence right click menu to the estimating and reports tabs.
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