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A business built on breaking stuffResource 1 helps dispose of computer hard drives, files
Breaking stuff is just more fun.
And it's even better if you can make money doing it - which makes Chuck McDonald one of the luckiest guys around.
McDonald is president of Resource 1, a company based in a warehouse off Hamill Road in Hixson. Resource 1 specializes in destroying (not just breaking, but obliterating) old computer hard drives in the name of security.
It goes something like this: You bring Resource 1 a computer or an old hard drive with sensitive information stored on it, and McDonald and the gang put your hard drive into a German-made, state-of-the-art, hard drive-eating machine, which in a few seconds, spits out the tiny, fingernail-size remains.
And why? Because hard drives, especially those used by banks, insurance agencies and hospitals, among others, are full of sensitive customer information. And hard drives are really hard to destroy.
For instance, McDonald shows off a hard drive with a gunshot through its center. Information from the hard drive was still successfully pulled off by a third-party forensics expert.
After 30 years as a corporate vice president with Harwood International Corporation, McDonald began noticing a trend among companies he visited. Often, there were old computer towers stacked in dusty closets, forgotten and, worse, unsecure.
"The focus is all on the front-end, but there's no thought given to the end-of-life aspect of computers after they're retired," he says.
Seeing an opportunity to fill the hard drive destruction void in Chattanooga, McDonald used his retirement savings to purchase Resource 1 (started in 2007) from Harwood International last summer.
"I put off my retirement for 10 years and put it into this business," he says.
Resource 1 is now one of the few hard drive destruction specialists in the Southeast, with competitors based in out of Atlanta and Nashville. And he believes Resource 1 is unique in that it will bring a shredder to your office or place of business and destroy hard drives on-site.
"I thought, 'Why can't we just put one of these shredders on a truck and drive it to the client?'" he says.
So he did.
Now, alongside Anthony Mundis, vice president of logistics, and Chris Adams, intern, Resource 1 is doing just that. Customers are welcome to watch first-hand as it happens.
Resource 1 serves clients in a 300-mile radius of Chattanooga.
"We are the most secure and competitive company in the Southeast doing this right now," says McDonald.
It costs $8 per hard drive, plus transportation fees, where applicable.