About RVTC
We share a philosophy.
We believe in the promise of open source software for businesses that need cutting-edge and dependable database-driven websites on a budget. But more than just designing and developing websites, we also train clients to manage and expand their sites on their own. We believe in sharing our expertise to empower our clients and help sustain their sites. We treat every project as a fresh challenge and an opportunity for us to expand our own knowledge. We believe in collaboration and in listening.
We can help you lay out a clear path to your next (or first!) website. We specialize in Drupal and CiviCRM, and our portfolio showcases many projects that include custom features we’ve built on these platforms. Give us a call at 413-367-6448 or send an email to info[at]rvtc.us to find out how we can work together.
We have a long history with Drupal.
RVTC has been developing sites in Drupal since version 4.7 (May 2006), although some staff members were playing with Drupal long before. We decided with our first Drupal sites to focus our services on site development with Drupal because we found it easy to customize with a clean core and a thriving community. Our online portfolio includes several videos of sites we’ve completed including the custom content we contributed to each project. We also have experience migrating sites between major Drupal versions.
We develop modules and design accessible themes. We are active Drupal community members.
We have a lot of experience developing modules for clients and are working actively on extending a few modules to contribute to the community. We have an equal amount of experience designing and coding Drupal themes. Our lead theme developer is an ace with CSS, believes that web standards serve real purposes and aren’t just lofty goals, and patiently tests across browsers (and aims to degrade nicely across those that aren’t standards-compliant!). We have contributed comments, feedback, patches, and documentation on Drupal.org, elsewhere on the internet, and in our local (offline) Drupal group. We participate in testing core modules such as Panels and Views since we rely upon them heavily, and we extend our knowledge to the wider community.
We use Drupal to run our own business.
We believe in walking our talk. So, this has meant developing our internal project management software with Drupal, which we use to run the majority of our business. We centralize all communications and support features akin to 37Signal’s Basecamp such as threaded conversations via email that remain attached to Drupal nodes (no need to go to the Drupal site - just answer your email and the comment appears on the appropriate node!). We use it to track todo items, milestones, due dates, documentation wikis, bug reports, and files per project per client (thanks to organic groups + organic access + notify). We also give our clients accounts on the system to give them direct access to the project, monitor progress and budget , and participate in issue tracking (akin to Edgewall’s Trac).
Not counting my Commodore 64 years, I began my IT career when Windows 95 hit the scene and Google was just a glimmer on the Californian horizon. I discovered Drupal four years ago when it was giving Joomla a run for its money.
At the time, I was working as the IT manager at the National Priorities Project (NPP). We were using Joolma and getting about 200,000 visitors a month and the site was not scaling well. I saw the limits of Joomla and the promise of Drupal 4 with its taxonomy system, clean urls, and security features. I converted NPP to Drupal and migrated their main database, http://nationalpriorities.org/nppdatabase_tool, from webobjects to a Drupal-friendly structure in MySQL. Still not satisfied, I moved NPP’s constituent data (including their 25,000 member email list) out of the expensive Raiser's Edge and into the free and open source CiviCRM 1.8, saving the company money that it was spending on their desktop software.
Thus began my commitment to supporting non-profits by creating affordable, custom-built content management systems in Drupal and CiviCRM. I founded River Valley Tech Collective as a collaborative team of other like-minded techies to provide Drupal-driven sites to a wider range of non-profits, educational institutions and local community organizations.
I have been involved in information technology since the days when high speed access meant 56kbs over the phone line. More recently I have become involved in a professional capacity, focusing primarily on Drupal theme development. I have been the lead theme developer for River Valley Tech Collective since it's inception. My primary responsibilities at RVTC are to work closely with graphic designers and clients to develop flexible, search-engine friendly, high quality Drupal themes. Examples of my work can be seen in our portfolio at www.rvtc.us.
In addition to my work with RVTC, I hold a position as an extension educator & entomologist at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst campus. My work there focuses primarily on research and education in agricultural ecology and vegetable crop production systems with a special focus on ecological insect and disease management.
When not coding away on websites or chasing Acalymma vittatum through squash fields, I enjoy growing tomatoes, cultivating shiitake mushrooms, keeping bees, cooking delicious things for my family to eat, and goofing around with my three year old son.
I have 13 years of database development experience in MySQL, PostgreSQL and FileMaker Pro and enjoy knowledge domain modeling as well as user interface design. I've been designing database-driven websites in PHP for 10 years and got on board the Drupal train in its early days. I'm a PhD candidate in anthropology at UMass Amherst, and my graduate research has included the development of affordable and/or open source collection management software for heritage professionals. Like life, my website is always in process.
Jay has been online since the days of 300 baud modems. He built his first website in the mid nineties and has been hooked ever since. Whether he was working on special effects for blockbuster movies or doing public relations for Microsoft, Playboy, or Wizards of the Coast, he continued working on websites both professionally and recreationally. Introduced to Drupal by his sister (who is also a web developer), Jay became an instant enthusiast. He now puts that passion to work for RVTC combining his knowledge of marketing, retail and the web to better serve their clients.
Site Architect and Developer
Jim began building websites in 1995. In 2007, he started working with Drupal and quickly became a convert to the content management system. He has a deep appreciation for the range of functionality Drupal and it’s modules offer. Site architecture and workflow, along with discovering and maximizing Drupal’s existing capabilities, are his focus today. His Drupal experience includes The New York Stock Exchange and Rutgers University.
