Software developer builds builders' suite

When Mark Worsnop wrote his first software, he'd just received the 384th machine built by a then-tiny outfit called Apple Computer.

These days,Worsnop and his team at Reno-based Mark Systems Inc.

are preparing to roll out a wideranging package of software for the construction industry.

During the past two years,Worsnop and the company's programmers have written 4.8 million lines of code for the package dubbed Agilis, and they've been testing it for 10 months at a Reno construction company.

The next step, he said over breakfast a few days ago, is finding a handful of other construction companies willing to install Agilis before Mark Systems undertakes a full-blown marketing effort.

"We're on the edge of significant growth," the Mark Systems president said.

The software is an effort to wrap as many construction-related functions as possible into one package.

Agilis handles financial accounting including tricky multi-job accounting with multiple profit centers along with job costing, job management, equipment management, and work scheduling.

The Reno company will position Agilis as the first complete package available for the construction industry.

The software,Worsnop said, is an outgrowth of the frustration he encountered when he tried to help Reno's WES Construction develop a package to manage equipment use.

He quickly learned that aspects of the construction industry are closely linked there's a tie, for instance, between the payroll records of an equipment operator and the number of hours the equipment has been in operation but none of the software packages on the market provided a complete picture.

"They all did 80 percent, but the last 20 percent was missing,"Worsnop said.

"Nobody has done everything yet."

He offered to write a complete package for WES Construction for $20,000 to $40,000.

Construction company executives didn't think long before they accepted his offer.

Two year's work for as little as $20,000? Worsnop isn't naive about the software business.

Starting in 1983 when personal computers first came onto the scene, he built a company in Redwood City that was the first to provide data bases for 911 emergency systems.

In short order, the company followed with a system for the airline industry.

Selling the assets of that company in 1995,Worsnop in his 40s at the time decided to retire and handle a few consulting jobs on the side.

But he found he wasn't ready for retirement, and has financed development of Agilis from his own resources.

Two key players Matthew Karam, the company's vice president of software engineering, and Cheryl Worsnop, its director of training and system support came on soon after the company was founded.

Responsibility for the full-scale introduction of Agilis rests with Robert Comperchio, the company's vice president of sales and marketing.

Another step came last month when the company added graphics specialist Jeffrey Hogan.

But even as Mark Systems prepares to introduce Agilis to a wider market, Worsnop continues to look for ways to improve the software.

One possibility: Installation of telemetry to gather realtime information about the use of equipment.

That would further finetune the software's maintenance scheduling.

It's possible, too, that Mark Systems will move into other niche where its wide-and-deep software could find a home, but Worsnop is cautious.

"I'd want to make sure it's a market that we understand really well," he says.

And he figures to be busy with Agilis for a while.

Mark Systems believes the potential market is about 28,000 construction companies in the United States.