We recently sat down with Matthew Lockridge, to get to know him better and learn more about his journey during his time here at Field2Base.

Question: Tell us a little about yourself…

Matthew: My name is Matthew Lockridge and I am the Chief Strategy Officer at Field2Base. I grew up in South Carolina and have lived in the Southeast for much of my life. Even though I consider myself a Southerner, I must admit, I was born in Boston Massachusetts, so I guess my life story is a mixture of sweet tea and wicked awesome.

I graduated from The Citadel which is a small military college in Charleston, South Carolina. My degree was in business administration, but I have always been a bit of a technology nerd at heart. I’m going to date myself a little here, but I grew up in the world of DOS. (Before Windows). When I entered college, the concept of a web browser was brand new and there was no such thing as Amazon, Netflix or YouTube. Much like the generations that saw Henry Ford’s assembly line come to life or Neil Armstrong landing on the moon, I consider my generations fortunate in that we got to witness and shape the birth of the Internet. In a very short time span, less than 20 years, we evolved from being disconnected, to being connected in our homes and offices, to being connected everywhere.

I now live in the Raleigh, NC area where Field2Base is headquartered. Raleigh is an amazing place to live and raise a family. I’ve been married to by beautiful wife, Christy, for 13 years now and we have two amazing daughters together. Spending time with my family is very important to me but they probably prefer to leave me alone in the fall when college football is on because I can get pretty cranky or overly excited depending on how the season is going. Outside of that, my other passions include an interesting mix of deep sea fishing, golf, gourmet cooking and NASCAR. It’s complicated.

Question: How long have you been with Field2base?

Matthew: I joined Field2Base in 2008 as the Director of Sales. When I joined, the company was already 5 years old and their technology was very unique. At the time, Field2Base was focused on the construction space; however, we quickly determined that a foreman has the same data automation needs as a home healthcare nurse, and now we service dozens of industry verticals. I have enjoyed watching this company grow over the years. It has always been a dream of mine to work for a small company and grow it into something meaningful, which is exactly what we have done at Field2Base.

Question: Describe your experience before working at Field2Base.

Matthew: Even though I graduated from a military college, I did not go into the service afterwards. My eyesight was not good enough to be a pilot, which is what I wanted out of a military career. I did, however, work at the Pentagon as a technology consultant for Booz Allen and Hamilton. At the time, DSL and Wi-Fi were brand new concepts, so I was helping the Department of Defense understand and implement these technologies.

I was always intrigued by the concept of mobility. To me, being connected meant more than tying two people sitting in desk chairs together. So, when Verizon Wireless offered me a job to help jumpstart their Wireless Data program, I immediately accepted. We all knew wireless data could be big one day, but what happened during my 7-year tenure at Verizon Wireless exceeded all of our expectations. Mobility became mainstream and for corporate America, it became table stakes. Every company needed to build a corporate strategy for mobility in order to survive

Question: In your opinion, what is our biggest advantage over our competition?

Matthew: For me, our biggest advantage is the maturity of our platform. By mature, I mean Field2Base is the most “complete” offering in the marketplace. We have over 15 years and 750,000 hours of development into this platform. Our platform has been able to solve the most difficult business challenges while remaining to be very simple to use, scalable and secure.

When the iPad and Android tablets where launched, 500 new digital form companies rushed into the marketplace. Many of them failed and some of them survived. Most of our challengers are still new to this space when compared to Field2Base. They are still developing features and applications to address customer concerns that we solved years ago. I believe we have the most complete offering and it’s at a price point that is typically less than our competitors.

Question: Where do you see Field2Base in the next 12 months? 5 years?

Matthew: This is a very interesting question and it’s something that I ask myself quite often. I can tell you that Field2Base will always be vigilant. We will always be researching emerging technology, seeking to understand our customer’s needs, monitoring market forces, and providing a positive social impact for our environment and our neighbors.

In the beginning, Field2Base focused on connecting the field worker with the office with our Mobile Forms™ platform. We then expanded the platform to allow the internal office workers to connect and collaborate with tools like Workflow, Analytics and data Integration. We then expanded the platform again to connect with external data systems such as IoT and cloud services. I can’t provide any specific R&D information during this interview, but I can tell you that Field2Base is working on new expansions to its platform that allows companies to connect in ways they never considered. Our vision is to be the global leader for enabling businesses to achieve their complete digital transformation.

Question: Is there anything else you would like to add and/or comment on?

Matthew: When thinking about the future, it’s important to remember your roots. It’s easy for a company to spend so much time looking up at the stars that they lose their footing. For us, our foundation is built on customer trust.

Many of our customers have been with us for over a decade. They took a chance on a small company in 2002 and we have growth together over the years. Our customers place their trust in us for many reasons. They trust us to always be innovative, to solve difficult business challenges, to offer a meaningful return on their investment and to support them through their journey. The profound truth is that without customers, your business is just an idea.

Thank you for reading our blog and please stay tuned for more blogs from our team here at Field2Base!