Imagetek keeps company data secure

Kristin Danley-Greiner

Imagetek Inc. of Grimes has a worldwide reach. The content management and process automation company recently celebrated its 20th anniversary.

Owner Ted Kruzan worked in marketing at IBM after gradating from Iowa State. But after time, he felt like a “small cog” in a really big wheel, so he launched his own business.

“I felt I could take my own ideas and make a difference on a bigger scale. ... I was seeing these spools of paper coming off printers and knew there was a more efficient way to do this. I was interested in the green movement before it actually became popular,” Kruzan said.

Kruzan’s longtime passion for managing data fueled him to offer a variety of services under Imagetek, such as data backup and disaster recovery.

He spoke with The Des Moines Register about his business.

Q: Who are your clients?

A: Cities, schools, large and small businesses, hospitals, insurance companies, banks, county governments and higher education.

Q: What is off-site backup?

A: We store data in the cloud. Most of our document imaging products are all cloud-based. We have more than 5,000 users in the cloud on our system. We have not had a system outage in the last 10 years, which is better than Microsoft, Google, DropBox and Amazon. We were one of the early adopters of the cloud — people couldn’t understand it, now it’s a household name.

Q: Where do you store all your client’s data?

A: We have a facility that stores our data in Denver, Colo., and then we back up our data across three major power grids in the U.S. We back it up every hour on the hour 365 days a week.

Q: What do you do for disaster recovery?

A: One benefit of our system is that if something happens to your facility, you have access to all of your information anywhere in the world, so your business can continue. Whether it’s fire, flood, earthquakes or tornadoes, we can help a business continue functioning after a disaster. We’ve also had situations where there’s been a commercial chemical spill and if you’re quarantined from your business for awhile, the availability of your information is hugely important.

Q: What are the perks of a paperless office?

A: The workflow is streamlined and very efficient. We also do scanning and outsource services on behalf of clients who don’t want to mess with scanning things themselves. We’ll have mail delivered here for their accounts payable, then we open the envelopes and scan their information, then send it to them, so they never touch paper.

Q: How big is the environmental impact?

A: It’s huge. In just the last 10 years when we’ve been storing data in the cloud, we’ve saved more than 5 million trees.

Q: Are there other businesses like yours?

A: We are kind of a rare business.

Q: How many employees do you have?

A: 25.

Imagetek Inc.

LOCATION: 1851 Miehe Drive, Grimes

HOURS: 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.

OWNER: Ted Kruzan

BUSINESS HISTORY: Imagetek incorporated in 1995.

CONTACT: 800-422-1330,