In 1994, I was working at a YPO convention and Mayor Richard Riordan came to speak. Having followed his story of being a successful attorney and entrepreneur then turned $1 annual salary Mayor, I greatly admired this type of politician.  I wanted to make a difference in the City of Los Angeles, and having been raised on the Westside, I decided to ask him for a job.

I followed him out of the convention and as he began to get into his SUV, I praised his efforts and told him I’d love to join his team and contribute to changing LA.  He was encouraged by my audacity and his area specialist Janet Knowles immediately put me to work with Tom LeBonge, the current Field Deputy for the Mayor.  After only two months of a part-time non-paid internship, I was offered a paid internship and immediately took over the job of organizing the Mayor’s Economic Roundtables.  We were inviting hundreds of business leaders in the Fashion, Technology, Multimedia, and Environmental Industries to meet together and brainstorm on ideas of how to spur these industries in the City of Los Angeles.  The previous intern used Microsoft Office to somehow organize all of the data, and I thought to myself, “There’s got to be a better way to do this!” I had never used or seen ACT! Contact Management Software before, but after a little research I purchased a copy and took a month of study to learn it and put it to use.  Not before long I had the basics mastered and was spitting out reports and performing queries.

This was ACT! 2.0, and it was back when you didn’t need an IT degree to figure out software.  Not before long, I was asked if this could work for a group of 20 people which would be tracking companies moving in and out of Los Angeles.  After some brief analyses with various leaders of LA’s Business Team (Rocky Delgadillo and Steve MacDonald), I determined that it was indeed possible, and subsequently I was offered a full-time job!  We purchased a 25-user license of ACT! 2.0 and a full-year of technical support, and I was off to the races determining the business needs of the group and its functionality.  This was 1994, when ACT! came out with its first version of multi-user capabilities (before that only one user could access the software at a time).

After falling in love with ACT! Contact Management Software and its ability to help organize a team’s business activities, I figured every company in Southern California could use this software.  In 1995, I started subcontracting with a local ACT! consulting shop and then in 1996 I created Gray Davis and Associates to help companies get the most from their ACT! software.