About
Greg Naive, founder of Flathead Apple Service in 2014, has spent more years in IT than he cares to remember. It began with a summer during college when he worked as a system analyst for an electronics company, years before the Personal Computer had been invented. Fortunately, IBM punch cards were no longer in use, or he might have found his life taking a drastically different direction.
That was followed by 5 years selling small mainframe computers for Hewlett Packard, followed by a stint at a small graphics firm making one of the first color video cards available for the new IBM PC. During this time the first desktop Laser Printers hit the market, and he saw an attractive business opportunity in the recycling of the toner cartridges for these printers. Siezing the moment, he founded Laser Saver in San Diego in 1987, and grew it into the largest laser cartridge remanufacturing company in the San Diego metropolitan area over the next 5 years.
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While building Laser Saver, he was impressed with the ease of use of the new Apple Macintosh, and ended up basing his own company’s computer systems on this platform. He put together a “large” network of 8 Macintosh SE’s and one SE-30 as the Filemaker and Pagemaker Server. Being both a computer geek and fundamentally cheap, he did 90% of the company computer and software development work, and thus began his life-long relationship with the Macintosh platform.
After getting married and having their first child on the way, in 1991 Greg and his wife Susan decided it was time to get out of Southern California and move up to the gorgeous Flathead Valley to join most of Greg’s family that had made the move several years before. Greg managed to cash in on Laser Saver and purchase RMA Computers and The Ribbon Works in Kalispell in 1993. When his youngest child diagnosed with autism in 1998, he elected to merge his company into The Computer Place, Kalispell’s premier computer company and one of the first 500 Apple dealers in the country. There he became a Certified Macintosh Technician, a position he held until going out on his own once again and founding Flathead Apple Service in 2014.
Over the last 20 years as a Certified Mac Technician, Greg’s clientele has included every local newspaper, printshop and school district, several law offices dedicated to using the Macintosh, a huge annual equestrian event, and well over 1000 satisfied home users.
That was followed by 5 years selling small mainframe computers for Hewlett Packard, followed by a stint at a small graphics firm making one of the first color video cards available for the new IBM PC. During this time the first desktop Laser Printers hit the market, and he saw an attractive business opportunity in the recycling of the toner cartridges for these printers. Siezing the moment, he founded Laser Saver in San Diego in 1987, and grew it into the largest laser cartridge remanufacturing company in the San Diego metropolitan area over the next 5 years.
.
While building Laser Saver, he was impressed with the ease of use of the new Apple Macintosh, and ended up basing his own company’s computer systems on this platform. He put together a “large” network of 8 Macintosh SE’s and one SE-30 as the Filemaker and Pagemaker Server. Being both a computer geek and fundamentally cheap, he did 90% of the company computer and software development work, and thus began his life-long relationship with the Macintosh platform.
After getting married and having their first child on the way, in 1991 Greg and his wife Susan decided it was time to get out of Southern California and move up to the gorgeous Flathead Valley to join most of Greg’s family that had made the move several years before. Greg managed to cash in on Laser Saver and purchase RMA Computers and The Ribbon Works in Kalispell in 1993. When his youngest child diagnosed with autism in 1998, he elected to merge his company into The Computer Place, Kalispell’s premier computer company and one of the first 500 Apple dealers in the country. There he became a Certified Macintosh Technician, a position he held until going out on his own once again and founding Flathead Apple Service in 2014.
Over the last 20 years as a Certified Mac Technician, Greg’s clientele has included every local newspaper, printshop and school district, several law offices dedicated to using the Macintosh, a huge annual equestrian event, and well over 1000 satisfied home users.