My wife and I incorporated Compulife in Canada in October 1982. This month is our 40th year of business.

My first programmer and I had actually been developing software for a few months before that and we were getting close to a first product by the time of the incorporation. By the end of 1982 our first sale was to a man named Dick Gilbert. If I recall correctly Dick and his partner purchased software and a computer from us, a Morrow Micro Decision CP/M based system.

We sold a number of those in the day, and our first software ran quite happily on them.

The alternative to the Morrow was the Kaypro which we called a "luggable" 30 pound portable. This old Kaypro ad is quite funny:

NOTE:   I love visiting the past on YouTube.

We sold great value computers, that were low cost, and combined that with software that helped agents find low cost insurance products for their customers.

By the way, Dick is still a customer today. He has since upgraded from that first Morrow. I wonder how many computer upgrades you have made in the last 40 years? It's amazing to think that very few people had computers 40 years ago. Here's a scene from a movie about a young man who was raised in a bunker, and who missed out on the personal computer revolution:

We were routinely selling computers and software through the entire of 1983 and it was a big deal when we celebrated 10 systems, then 25 systems, etc.

In October 1987 we incorporated in the U.S. and opened our first office in Amherst NY (just north of Buffalo). It was a two hour drive from the Canadian office. By that point it was all PC software and we didn't have to sell any computers to anyone. Prices had dropped like a rock and there was no margin in selling hardware anymore.

Our initial advertising in the U.S. offered free software service in return for an agent sending in 6 of their favorite term rates cards. It's how we first made connections with potential U.S. subscribers and how we first began to find out which companies were popular and how we first got their rates and product information. By 1990 we had about 150 "free roll" subscribers and a fairly strong software program which required a lot of adaptation from the Canadian version. At that point we stopped the free service and said that those people could continue for $49 per month or $490 per year (which is about $127 per month or $1,270 per year in today's money). Our numbers shrank to about 50 subscribers but we were off and running.

NOTE:   Prices have dropped since then.

In August 1997, with green cards in hand, our family moved to Kentucky. We closed down the NY office and opened our doors in KY. We have now lived in the U.S. for the past 25 years and are grateful that the U.S. took us in.

For people who think of their work as a "career", 40 years is a pretty long time. If a person was 25, and put in 40 years of work, they would be 65 and thinking (possibly) about retiring. If you had a defined pension plan and getting 2% per year, that would mean a retirement income with about 80% of your last 5 years of pay and no more having to go to the office.

I was 28 when I started Compulife which means I am now 68. A lot of our subscribers were older than I was when we started the company, and a lot of our subscribers are still older than I am at 68. The fact is that we work in a great business where you can work as long as you want and MANY life agents like what they are doing and continue to work, some well into their 80's. Even playing too much golf can start to feel like work and selling life insurance actually pays much better.

I have no plans to ever retire. Thank God I am still fairly healthy with only minor issues and my dad worked for our Canadian company until he was over 80. God willing, and the creek don't rise, I have a few years left. I plan to keep working until I get in the way at which time we will to transition the company to the next generation of our family.

Jeremiah, as some of your will know, is married to our oldest daughter Aimee and they both work for the company. Aimee is backup to my wife who works in the main office with Jeremiah. Jeremiah is the newest employee and has been with us for a decade and a half. I remember the days when Aimee and her two brothers, all very young, would sit in front of the disk duplicators waiting for those red lights to turn green. They all worked to generate money for college.

Our other two employees, who are not blood related, certainly feel like family. Chris (our programmer) and Donna (our Canadian office manager) have both been with us for about 3 decades. We have a very stable group of people and so far everyone seems happy. They are all younger than my wife and I and so the plan is to continue to provide seamless service for the rest of "my" life and for some years beyond. There grandkids that have to eat, go to college, etc. Lots of insentive to stay at the job.

None of this would mean anything without you who are our customers. Without people who buy our product and make all this happen, we could not do what we are doing. That's been true for all of those 40 years. Thank you and thank you. In responses to your ongoing support we plan to keep on working hard and will do so as long as we are able.

And as I have shared with you before, I am deeply concerned with the future of our country's economy and I would HATE the idea of having to rely upon a load of cash in the bank which I am pretty sure is going to be turned into worthless paper by the liberal socialists currently running the show. $31 trillion in debt, and you can quadruple that by adding in the unfunded (current) Medicare and Social Security entitlements. This mess is going to come to an abrupt and bumpy end, and I think the outcome will have most of us needing to work just to put food on the table.