Personal greeting from PDS Founder Father Mike Boyle

To all my PDS friends, it hardly seems like 30 years (1978) since PDS began to see the light of day, but that's how long it has been. At that time, I was pastor of St. Vincent de Paul parish in Phoenix. I had heard about computers and wondered if this emerging technology would be of any help to us in handling our census, contribution and school tuition information.

After many false starts, we found a computer with 64K of memory and two floppy disk drives containing 264K of storage each. According to today's standards, this was backwards. You did not purchase equipment and then figure out how to use it. However, we did purchase it, and then developed a plan. We needed a programmer and someone to input the information. How were we to find a programmer and a computer operator at a time when computers were so new? You didn't because those who had the experience were too few and the cost to hire them was prohibitive. So we found a solution the church often relies on: volunteers!

And so, we began with a volunteer from the school office who had never seen a computer, a high school wiz kid and a pastor who hoped (and prayed) this might work.

In a short period of time, we had a few programs working. Before long, other parishes heard about our experiment and asked for information, a copy of the program or a visit to explain how this might work in their environment. This experiment soon got out of hand. As parishes began to use the program, they began to request more and more features. With this kind of growth, it became apparent that we could not operate out of a small back room in the rectory.

In the years that followed, PDS added more personnel and with that more programs. By the end of the 80's, about 1,200 parishes were using our programs; by the end of the 90's, about 6,000 parishes were using our programs. As we entered the new century, technology began to explode. It was gradually becoming apparent that our little company had to expand or find someone to partner with because we could not keep up with the growing need in the church to handle information.

In April of 2004, we joined forces with ACS Technologies, another company providing software to churches. Coincidentally, ACS Technologies started about the same time as PDS. The only difference was that they developed software for mostly Protestant churches. In joining forces, we now share the resources of over 300 people. This gives PDS a new vitality, making us capable of responding to the ever-expanding need to utilize information at the parish, school and diocesan level.

While PDS's business operations have grown and evolved over the years, from those early days of tinkering with computers in a backroom of my parish rectory, its' philosophy has remained the same. I was a younger priest then, trying to help my parish ministry. Now a bit older – not that old though mind you – the PDS team and I continue to be dedicated to helping parish ministries of every size all across the nation.

I never imagined our little experiment would one day become the most widely used Catholic church office management software – used by more parishes than any other Catholic software – supporting parishes in 50 states and even in some foreign countries. I am humbled to be a part of such a cause and will forever be grateful that from one small parish I had a tiny part in helping ministry.

Yours in Christ,

Father Mike Boyle
PDS Founder