CheckOutMyCards.com

Tim Getsch, MS

Founder & CTO

Tim grew up in Minnesota as an avid collector of baseball, basketball, and hockey cards. He fell in love with numbers at a young age and went on to earn a BS in Math at age 19 and a MS in Computer Science, both from the Institute of Technology at the University of Minnesota. In 1999, Tim was hired by Microsoft as a Program Manager on Excel. In 2001, Tim switched to Microsoft Access. Tim left Microsoft in October of 2007 as the most tenured Program Manager on the team.

Tim started dreaming about the possibilities of a centralized sports card exchange in the fall of 2003. He built software in Microsoft Access to analyze and bid on eBay auctions, and he built LowPriceCards.com as an outlet to sell excess inventory purchased from eBay. In the fall of 2006, Tim started building CheckOutMyCards.com as a successor to LowPriceCards.com, so users could post and manage their online inventory.

More detailed history and vision for CheckOutMyCards.com

Tim's username is TimGetsch. He also manages the cards in the LowPriceCards account.

Steve Hollander

Operations Manager

Steve has been an active dealer at card shows since the early 80's. Tim and Steve first met at a card show in the Seattle area. Steve was the second dealer to beta-test our consignment services, and he was the first seller to aggressively pursue listing cards on CheckOutMyCards.com. As the site grew, Steve made it known that he wanted to be informed as soon as we started accepting resumes. In December of 2007, Steve became employee #4, and by January of 2008 he became our first full-time team member focusing on processing and shipping cards.

Steve's username is SteveSC.

Dave Elmore

Identification Specialist

Dave has been collecting cards since the 60's and has helped run card shops for more than 10 years. As a regular attendee of the Seattle area card shows, Dave heard about CheckOutMyCards.com through a friend. After taking a look at the site, he decided to give it a shot. This was back in October of 2007, before Dave had a chance to personally meet anyone involved with the site. Dave was thrilled that he was able to sell random cards that he never thought anyone would want to buy, and he continued to send us more and more cards. In January 2008, Dave finally got a chance to meet Steve and to chat about his experience with the site. When Steve mentioned how bogged down we were with work, Dave volunteered to work part-time to help us out. His original motive was a tiny bit selfish... without his help, it was just going to take us that much longer to get his cards on this site. :-) By June of 2008, Dave decided to leave his full-time job to start working full-time for CheckOutMyCards.com.

Dave's username is DavesCards.

Mark Boyer

Identification Manager

Owner of one of the largest private collections of comic books in the state of Washington, Mark has been working on a project to make a virtual timeline/database that spans the different comic book realities. Tim's brother Toby originally met Mark while working at Microsoft in 2004. Toby often discussed the possibility of Mark and Tim collaborating since they were both working on enormous projects based on childhood hobbies. In March of 2008, CheckOutMyCards.com was in need of a second full-time employee to help out with processing and shipping cards, and timing couldn't have been more perfect. Mark had just finished his contract at Microsoft. Toby helped set up a meeting between Tim and Mark, and they quickly realized the potential for a mutually beneficial relationship. Mark's experience working at a sports card and comic shop while growing up and his familiarity with computers were a great combo that was needed to help identify the incoming cards. One of Mark's goals is to help us replicate the CheckOutMyCards' concept with comics.

Mark's username is riotgear.

Brent Lewison

Identification Specialist

As a young child in eastern washington, Brent began his collection by spending his allowance on 25¢ packs of baseball cards from the local convenience store. This was back in 1981. Since then Brent had the opportunity to work for a sports card and supply distributor for more than 10 years. Through this experience Brent met Dave. Brent was the rep for the card shop that Dave was helping run. Dave and Brent became close friends, and it was Dave that recruited Brent to come join CheckOutMyCards.com. Brent started working part-time in May, and in the same week in June, both Dave and Brent started working fulltime at CheckOutMyCards.com after leaving their regular jobs.

Brent's username is dawgfan72.

JT Turner, BA

Identification Specialist

Baron Davis, Gilbert Arenas, Tayshaun Prince, and Jason Kapono are some of the current NBA players that JT had to defend while growing up in Los Angeles. JT went on to play ball for the University of Idaho where he earned his BA in communications. Life brought JT to Seattle in 2004 where he met Tim while playing pro-am basketball. JT and Tim became good friends both on and off the court. In May 2008, JT joined the staff at CheckOutMyCards.com to help us meet the exponentially growing demands of the business.

Founding team members

Julia Getsch, MA

Business Manager

Julia grew up in the Midwest and has lived in the Seattle area since 2000. She completed her BA in Psychology and MA in Counseling Psychology with an emphasis in Culture and Social Justice at Northwest University in Kirkland, WA. As the top graduate, she was selected by the Dean to assist him in developing a young program and running a successful graduate school. She served as a director and adjunct faculty. After her university time, Julia worked for a law firm with a focus on business law (www.changlawgroup.com). These experiences led to her desire to begin a start-up, and she was thrilled with the prospect of starting CheckOutMyCards.com. Julia also serves on the board of the Iranian American Community Alliance (www.iaca-seattle.org) and as Co-Chair of the Civic Action Committee.

Andrew Bird

Software Design Engineer

Andrew has been passionate about computers since he was very young. After high school, Andrew studied computer programming at Hennepin Technical College in Eden Prairie, MN. Over the course of his studies, he fell in love with web development and began to vigorously study it outside the classroom. In 2002, Andrew began building websites for friends, family, and himself. Through personal independent study, Andrew became well-versed and impassioned with the concepts of web standards, semantic development, search engine optimization, user interface design, and information architecture.

In 2005, Andrew accepted a web developer position with Saint Paul College in St Paul, Minnesota. Less than a year after starting at the College, Andrew taught a Web Design class and served as adjunct faculty as well as web developer. In February 2007, Andrew walked away from a promotion at Saint Paul College to join the CheckOutMyCards.com team.

In November 2007, Andrew wrapped up his amazing efforts on CheckOutMyCards.com and started working on a much larger web development project at Serena Software in Bellevue, Washington.