Roadtechs.com

[jim]

I'll have to get more information from Steve, but here is the basic history of the site...

1997 - Steve Ryan took an interest in the (then still young) internet and decided to put up a web site. He wanted a place where nuke workers on the road could keep in touch. Back then, a pretty common name for contract nuclear workers was "roadwhores" so he named his new site roadwhore.com.

As word of mouth spread about roadwhore.com, the site became the focal point for information related to contract work in the nuclear industry. In fact, the site was popular enough to attract the attention of a few recruiters who wanted to start posting some contract job openings.

Once word got out that recruiters were having good success filling jobs posted on roadwhore, other shops wanted to join in. The site was becoming a second job for Steve and he eventually started charging shops to post jobs and advertise. Steve also added new areas to the site to accommodate user and recruiter requests (petro-chem, computer, aerospace and overseas).

For the nostalgic among you, you can still see what the old site looked like here: http://web.archive.org/web/19981212020756/http://roadwhore.com/

2002 - I (Jim) joined Steve on roadtechs to try and help out with some of the administrative and programming duties. The site was just becoming too much for Steve to handle on his own.

2003 - Early in the year, we made a major change to the look of the site. The old black background was gone and replaced with white. We updated the graphics and added a new menu system. The Medical / Pharmaceutical area was added to the site too.

Mid 2003 - We added the Electric Transmission and Distribution area.

The name change: The middle of '03 was also about the time that we had to change the name from roadwhore.com to roadtechs.com. A lot of hand wringing went into that name change; we didn't want to do it. But, there were so many sites starting to block roadwhore.com, we didn't have much choice. For those of you that still like the old roadwhore.com name, you can still use it to get to the site.

Late 2003 - We added the General Construction area. This continues as our current line-up (8 areas).

Early 2004 - The For Sale or Trade board was added.

Early 2005 - The lodging list was changed over to much nicer script with a database. The old system required too much manual manipulation. Continued to make incremental improvements to the site.

2006 - Continued to make incremental improvements to the site.

2007 - Added the new search tool. Allows job post word searches across all fields in a post. Or, the pre-written searches can be used.