Offsite Data Depot readies move into document storage

Offsite Data Depot's methodical plans for growth will take a big step as the Carson City company prepares to lease space for the document-storage operation that will provide a second major source of revenue.

The company, which moved to Carson City from the Bay Area, has spent the last seven months building the other side of its business computer consulting, on-line computer backups and e-mail filtering.

Those operations require less capital than the document-storage business, says Brian W. Olson, a partner in Offsite Data Depot with Gerd Poppinga.

Because the partners are building the business with their personal savings, the cautious strategy is particularly important, Olsen says.

Within the next few days, the company expects to sign a lease on a 12,500-square-foot facility near the Carson City Airport. There, it will begin offering document-storage services securing boxes of paperwork for companies that have neither the space nor the inclination to store them in their own offices.

Usually, Olsen says, document-storage companies such as the international player Iron Mountain Inc. target markets with at least 200,000 population. Olson and Poppinga think their company can turn a profit in the much-smaller Carson City market because Offsite Data Depot is offering other services as well.

And the fact that Carson City is home to the state government means there are plenty of organizations generating boxes of paperwork.

Olson says the company expects to draw most of its document-storage business from the Carson Valley and Eagle Valley. Customers for its technology services, meanwhile, are located throughout the West.

Offsite Data Depot expects to open its secure data storage facility in February. As the operation gets established, the company currently staffed by only its two partners expects to add two or three additional workers.

Olson previously spent 13 years as chief technologist for a major financial services company. Poppinga was chief technology officer for a machining company and founded Data Storage Associates, a document-imaging firm that he moved to Dayton from northern California in 2004. That firm was merged into Offsite Data Depot this year.