Nebraska Web Design, Marketing, and Applications

1999

A lot of sleep is lost during the month of December in 1999. Future Hollman Media, LLC president, Travis Hollman, decides to start his own web-development business. Inspired by one of his young lecturers who started her own web and marketing firm, Travis decides that running a small business might be his career calling.

2000

Hollman lands his first gig as a website contractor while a National Student Exchange student at Utah State University. Total payout is a whopping $294. The business changes its name from a never-really-used Hollrick Media Promotions, to TriCity Internet (a name later used by another, unrelated business in the area).

Travis convinces Angela Emrick to help start up the business back in their hometown of Kearney, Nebraska. The first business income while in Kearney is a mere $7 paid for an advertising spot on a community portal site that never saw more than a few visitors. The business shows a small loss for the year, the only year that it ever finishes in the red.

The first year is rough. At one point, Hollman visits a former classmate’s house to sell him his sunglasses so that he could buy enough gas to make it to his own apartment on the other side of town.

2001

The business name is changed once again to TechThreat Media, a name characteristic of some of the edgier, multimedia designers who are just starting up and who will later go out of business. The business operates as TechThreat Media for nearly eight years.

2002

Hollman and Emrick marry.

2003

TechThreat Media takes its online services to real estate agents, offering a creative and economical solution for multiple agents to own unique websites powered from one office site. Travis begins to educate his customers about his methods of generating “push and pull” traffic through the Internet.

2004

WeatherThreat.com is created in December and instantly explodes throughout Nebraska as a long overdue solution to eliminating redundant school closing phone calls and data entry. Angela joins the network team at the University of Nebraska at Kearney, allowing Travis to put more time into the business. The first generation of online real estate tools is built and introduced to TechThreat’s real estate customers.

2005

The PickMyTickets.com online ticketing system is created at the joint request of the University of Nebraska at Kearney and the Tri-City Storm. It proves to be a hit. TechThreat begins to specialize in the development of media sites, particularly sites for radio. The company releases its first generation of content management system (CMS) tools built specifically for the media. The tools prove to be exceptionally well-suited for all types of businesses and organizations needing the ability to easily update their own sites.

2006

TechThreat creates its second generation of website management tools. The new tools make it easier than ever for customers to perform most their site maintenance in house. Record numbers of schools and businesses enter their own closings through their WeatherThreat.com accounts. TechThreat finishes with another record year.

2007

The PointedOut.com Rewards Club is released for radio. Its success immediately exceeds expectations. In response to the tremendous traffic generated by the WeatherThreat.com network, and to ensure stability through redundancy, the WeatherThreat system is recoded and improved to run from three independent servers that share the workload and manage traffic. Another record year is achieved.

2008

The company Hollman Media, LLC is organized. Travis Hollman becomes the president of the new company and runs most the day-to-day operations. TechThreat Media runs side by side with Hollman Media, LLC until all contracts and assets are signed over in December of 2008. A TechThreat Media website customer receives an award for the “best website” in its state and in its division.

2009

Hollman Media, LLC starts the year with record projections and a second office located in Kearney. New personnel is hired to better serve new and existing accounts. The company begins to offer services targeted specifically at municipalities and city government as well as K-12 schools. Because of the marketing experience held by the Hollman Media team, services are expanded to help customers with all marketing efforts related to their websites.

2010

2010 found the company too busy to update its historical timeline for the current year.

2011

James “Cedric” McPherson was brought in to help run the Kearney office as Hollman Media’s newest full-time developer. The company finished the 2011 year with record growth and expansion.

2012

As August came to a close, Hollman Media was on par for yet another record year. Earlier that year, the company re-located to a spacious facility across town to accommodate the hiring of new employees & interns and to be more centrally located. The focus from 2012 onward has been mobile, mobile, mobile. With the explosion of smartphones flooding the market, the company works diligently to build up its mobile website and mobile apps technologies and services. Another Hollman Media site wins an Associated Press for “best website” in a three-state region.

2013

2013 was another big year. A few days into the year, our first app created through our internship program was featured in the New York Times. A month or so later, our company was featured in the Money section of the Omaha World Herald.

With the help of Triton Digital, Hollman Media rolled out its WeatherThreat.com alerts and closings service to nearly 500 Cumulus stations nationwide.

Another Hollman Media-built site won a Nebraska Broadcasters Association award.

The company re-located to a 7,000 square foot, 33-year-old school building in July. The new building, just outside of Kearney, provides a campus-style setting that is attractive to active employees (those who like to run around in gyms and make use of our fully-stocked recreational room). The new Cherry Avenue bypass from the Interstate will run right along our new property, making our new location an ideal choice for those visiting us from the Interstate, Highway 30, or the airport…all of which are just a stone’s throw away.

Growth was big, again. Our staff grew to 10 employees as we moved into the start of 2014.

2014

Hollman Media, LLC won the prestigious Walter Scott Entrepreneurial Business Award in 2014. The award is given to just one business each year by the University of Nebraska.

Travis & Angela were awarded the 2014 Distinguished Young Alumni Award, largely as a result of the work they have done in conjunction with Hollman Media.

The Kearney App was launched. This flagship project became the official app for Kearney, Nebraska. It incorporates several innovative algorithms under the hood to help serve the community. The new technology engineered and developed for this app will be leveraged and utilized on nearly all future mobile app projects to varying degrees.

The company’s first-ever app, My StuffFinder continues to be installed thousands of times each month all over the world, despite never experiencing a significant update over its few years of existence. This is indicative of the company’s continued policy to produce digital technology that ages well.

Another record growth year set expectations high headed into 2015.

2015

Nebraska Governor Pete Ricketts selects Hollman Media as one of only two Nebraska companies to pilot his Nebraska Developing Youth Talent Initiative for Nebraska’s Department of Economic Development. With the $120,000 grant, Hollman Media was able to work with Kearney Public Schools to create a “talent pipeline” and educational path for middle school students interested in Information Technology. Hollman donated tens of thousands of dollars in equipment to Kearney Public Schools, spent hundreds of hours mentoring students and building digital technology for the school system, and created a new, 500 sq. ft. Learning Lab at the Hollman Campus (a fitting use of the former school building purchased from KPS by Travis and Angela in 2013).

2016

This was another year where we were just too busy with customer projects to update our company history. We still did well and made some pretty neat stuff.

2017

See notes from 2016.