I retired from ID Experts on January 3, 2018, which is a company I co-founded in Oregon in 2003 with my friend and business partner John Davidson.
John and I founded ID Experts to help people who fell victim to identity theft. ID Experts was part of the data privacy and cyber security industry which was rapidly growing due to the increase in cyber attacks on companies, academia, and government entities.
ID Experts grew rapidly, helping over 25 million members today. They are the preferred vendor of identity protection solutions for the US Federal government, several State governments, and Blue Cross Blue Shield Association.
On January 4, 2018, I realized my mission to combat identity theft was not done and I decided to launch ID Mentor with a focus on protecting children and seniors who are the two most vulnerable populations affected by identity theft. My new focus was educating students on the value of their digital identity and how to protect it from the risk and impact of child identity theft.
I talked to many friends who were teachers and leaders in K12 schools as we developed the curriculum. One of the recurring issues that came up in our conversations was the increased need for additional funds due to diminishing budgets in the schools. This led to the idea that ID Mentor could structure the identity protection as a fundraising option to help the schools meet budget demands while being consistent with their mission of protecting students sensitive information.
Today, ID Mentor is working on providing identity protection campaigns to non-profit organizations like schools, churches, veterans assistance organizations, and youth sports teams to have a positive impact on the problem of identity theft.