Where It All Started: 1985
The year was 1985. Ronald Reagan was president, just starting his second term in office. In the movie theaters, Michael J. Fox was thrilling audiences in Back to the Future. Everyone had a Walkman with the latest cassettes from Madonna and Michael Jackson.
The computer revolution was in its infancy. Windows 1.0 had just been released. The Commodore 64 was very popular at home, and the first Nintendo came out that year. IBM PCs and clones dominated the market, but a little company called Apple had been making headway, releasing the Apple II and the first Macintosh in the early 80s. And a young man named Rich Coulombre was about to discover a passion that would grow into a four-decade technology consulting business.
Celebrating 40 Years
This year, The Support Group marks its 40th anniversary — and the entire company flew to Vegas to celebrate. While there, we sat down with Rich to learn about the inception of The Support Group back in 1985 and the company’s history.
Rich’s Early Years at Apple & the Values that Stuck
The son of an engineer, Rich was fascinated with technology from a young age, working with early IBM 1130s at Boston Latin School, and learning Fortran and Assembler. After a stint working at Xerox, he was hired as a tech support technician for Apple in 1984, working with Apple II’s, Apple III’s, Macs, the LISA and Apple’s then-new Laser Printer. It was there that the philosophy at the core of The Support Group began to take shape.
Rich recalled:
“At Apple, we could always make the argument that we were doing the right thing, even if it cost more money. And ultimately, we would be supported for doing the right thing for the customer. I always liked that.”
Striking Out on His Own: From Layoff to Launch
In mid-1985, the writing was on the wall at Apple. Steve Jobs was publicly feuding with management, and that summer the company laid off 1,200 people — includng Rich and his colleagues. Instead of jumping into a new role at another company, Rich and a couple of friends decided to start something of their own. They approached local dealers — contacts they already knew from tech support — with a straightforward pitch.
Rich remembered:
“No one else was offering training at the time. Intro to Mac, Intro to Word, that sort of thing — no one was doing it. So our first business plan was: we knew all the local dealers, so that was our starting point. We went to them and said, “ Do you want to offer training?” We set up a deal with them. They provided the customers and the location, we provided the service and the training materials, and we split the revenue.”
The relationships Rich and his partner had with the local dealers gave the company its foundation — and building good relationships with customers would remain a core value for everything TSG built over the next 40 years.
Building Momentum: Training Leads to Consulting
With every training, the business grew. Clients would attend a class and come back asking for more — consultation on projects, custom solutions, ongoing support. TSG was happy to help. Their customer base soon expanded beyond local dealerships to companies across the region — and in the Boston area, there were some very large Apple consumers: colleges and universities. TSG began delivering training and consulting at numerous well-known institutions in the area.
Rich said:
“One day, the head of a training department from a local university called me out of the blue. She explained that they’d been getting a flood of requests for FileMaker training and asked if I knew anything about it.
Without missing a beat, I said, ‘Of course — what do you need?’ She told me they were looking to set up a class. I agreed, hung up the phone, and then immediately called Mac PC Connection to order a copy of FileMaker.”
Discovering FileMaker… And Writing the Book On It
That phone call was TSG’s first encounter with FileMaker — and it would change the direction of the company entirely. This was FileMaker version 1.0. Resources for learning the platform were scarce, so Rich built the training curriculum from scratch. When he reached out to FileMaker’s product manager, a new opportunity emerged.
Rich recalled the product manager agreeing,
“My management has been telling me they’re hearing the same thing through the sales channels. So they actually gave me some money to get a book written. Do you want to write it?”
Rich had never written a book — and unlike most challenges he’d faced, this one gave him pause. He wasn’t a writer. But he knew the product. He sat down and started writing notes about what he knew and how to do things in FileMaker. A week and 50 pages of handwritten notes later, he had the foundation of a book. Working with experienced technical writer Jonathan Price, those notes became a comprehensive guide to FileMaker 2, Rich’s first published book.
Growing a FileMaker Consulting Business Across Industries
The rest is, as they say, history. Rich went on to write more books, speak at conferences around the country, and deliver FileMaker training and development throughout the world. The Support Group became one of the first official Claris FileMaker partners. At every step, the relationships built through training and presentations led directly to new client engagements. The client base grew to span virtually every sector — manufacturing, finance, healthcare, education, research — and ranged from small family businesses to enterprise-level corporations.
A Customer-first Mission That’s Lasted 40 Years
Through it all, the customer-centric approach that Rich learned at Apple became TSG’s mission: we are a customer service organization that happens to be good with technology. Over four decades, TSG has continued to pride itself on always doing the right thing for the client. The relationships that philosophy has fostered are proof that treating people right leads to better outcomes — through every technological shift, through good years and bad. That motto has served TSG well for 40 years. We’re confident it will carry us through the next 40, too.
Interested in working with a FileMaker consulting team with 40 years of experience? Get in touch — we’d love to explore how we can help.
in his early days became the mission statement for the company: that TSG is a customer service organization that happens to be good with technology. Over the last forty years, TSG has continued to pride itself on always doing the right thing for the customer. The relationships that this philosophy has fostered is proof that treating people right will always lead to a better outcome. Through one technological advance after another, through good years and bad, that motto has served TSG well for forty years — and we hope it will continue to do so for the next forty.
Interested in working with us? Reach out — we’d love to explore how we can help!
