Helping folks has always been at the heart of Spitzer Tech. When David and Olivia first started dating, they joked they were each “everybody’s boyfriend.” They were the people their friends turned to when they needed a ride to the airport, or help moving apartments, or someone to hold their hand and YouTube University a leaky sink.
Later, in the early days of Spitzer Tech, Olivia often wondered if David was giving away too much help for free. David never wavered. “I know what I’m doing,” he’d say. “People need it.”
That spirit of community support is still very much alive at Spitzer Tech today. Our office is located in the Parkrose neighborhood of NE Portland, where David and Olivia also reside. When the Parkrose Business Association ceased to exist, Olivia approached local nonprofit Historic Parkrose to look for a way Spitzer Tech could be more in touch with their neighborhood’s small business community.
First, we jumped in on Historic Parkrose‘s Business Connect meetings. Every part of the city faces their own unique challeges and Parkrose is no different. This forum is a great opportunity for all of us to work together to solve those problems. When the idea of a local business owners’ group chat came up, we knew this is where we could shine. David and his team offered to host a secure messaging platform where the neighbors could connect, all for free. We have since gotten that platform up and running, and we are excited to see where this new level of Parkrose small business collaboration takes us.
Then Historic Parkrose mentioned that their community computing space had fallen into disrepair. Similar to a library, Historic Parkrose sought to offer the neighborhood a space where folks could access the internet, free of charge. But their machines were out of date and slow, and demand had dropped as the computers became less and less functional.
This week David and Nic went by to donate their time and expertise, to get the community computing space back up to spec. They swapped out broken machines with donations from the Spitzer Tech inventory, and spruced up the ones that were still functioning. They cleaned up and reorganized the space, to make it more inviting. We currently in the process of updating the entire building’s networking, to improve bandwidth and productivity.
Historic Parkrose executive director, Hector Marquez (L),
with STC engineer Nic Chun (C), and STC owner David Spitzer (R).
David says that giving back to the community will always be a part of Spitzer Tech’s ethos. When asked why in-kind donations were an essential part of his business model, he explained, “Access to systems in this reality is not a nicety, it’s a requirement. Sometimes you gotta do $#%* for free, so everybody gets what they need.” And if you know David, you know that’s truly how he feels.
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