The HOPS Story

From his roots as a punch card programmer at IBM, Harvey Goodman learned quickly that every bit and CPU operation was precious. Although hardware continued to make improvements as per Moore's law, Goodman was frustrated with the limited advancements in software and data processing algorithms. It was this frustration that fueled the incredible journey as documented below…

1980 - Goodman forms Ebbars Micro-Computing to pursue his vision for a revolutionary, PC based, data processing system. With one Apple II and a relentless desire to challenge the so called irrefutable norms, Goodman begins to explore radically new methods for processing data.

1985 - After numerous failed attempts, Goodman makes a remarkable breakthrough in sorting. A new algorithm so powerful, a simple Apple II is now capable of out sorting mainframe class machines. This groundbreaking discovery will later become the nucleus of a technology Goodman names HOPS (Heuristic Optimized Processing System).

1990 - After a decade of extraordinary breakthroughs in the area of sorting, indexing, and compressing data, Goodman forms HOPS International, Inc. with the hopes of commercializing his software.

1991 - Simeon Kohl joins HOPS International, Inc. as COO to assist Goodman with the commercial launch.

1992 - Liberty Mutual Insurance conducts extensive benchmarks of the HOPS technology and is astonished with the performance. Liberty licenses the HOPS technology to migrate a massively paralleled, Teradata application to the HOPS software running on a Macintosh!. HOPS International, Inc. has its first customer.

1992 - Information Week documents the incredible story of HOPS in an article titled "Mac Attack on Big Iron".

1993 - 1997 Quietly, a number of fortune 500 companies such as Blockbuster Entertainment, Blue Cross & Blue Shield, Walgreens, Corning, Johnson & Johnson, and Westinghouse license the HOPS software as an alternative to Teradata, Oracle and IBM's decision support and data mining solutions.

1998 - TRAP Systems, Inc., a HOPS International subsidiary, is formed to offer data mining and Health Care fraud control solutions. The company purchases a 40,000 square foot facility in Miami Lakes, FL and pioneers a data center delivery model to host customer data and HOPS based applications. The HOPS technology is no longer marketed as a stand-alone product.

1998 - First Data Merchant Services selects TRAP to provide hosted reporting services to First Data's prepaid merchants.

1999 - Chase Merchant Services contracts TRAP to supply hosted reporting and data mining services to over 50,000 of their largest merchants.

2000 - The Florida Agency of Health Care Administration reviews a number of fraud control vendors and awards TRAP Systems a multi-year contract for Medicaid Program Integrity services. TRAP is now housing in excess of 100 terabytes of client data in its data centers.

2001 - TRAP identifies tens of millions of dollars in potential Medicaid overpayments for State of Florida.

2003 - Kaiser Permanente selects TRAP to build and house one of the country's largest health care claims databases for the purposes of fraud control and compliance data mining.

2005 - TRAP's customer requirements and associated data volumes grow dramatically. Through direct and indirect relationships, TRAP is now processing over 250 terabytes of client data and producing nearly 200,000 reports per month. TRAP is using nothing more that the HOPS technology to provide these services.

2006 - Sadly, Harvey Goodman loses a hard fought battle against Cancer, but his vision lives on…. His wife, Mary Goodman, becomes Chairman and promotes Simeon Kohl to the office of President and CEO. Mrs. Goodman authorizes significant investments in all facets of the business in recognition of the enormous potential.

March, 2007 -TRAP Systems attracts a number of seasoned industry executives to compliment the company's leadership.

November, 2007 - TRAP Systems changes focus from a product-based model to a subscriber-based model and gains very positive feedback from clients.

November, 2008 - As part of the company's transformation plan, HOPS International drops the TRAP Systems name and re-launches under the original company name as it prepares to debut its Reveal line of HOPS based on-demand, analytic solutions products.

Today - HOPS has 100,000 unique subscribers, houses 600 terabytes of customer data, and produces over 350,000 monthly reports...and that’s just the beginning!