Digital Provisions

Founding Story

“Brian Schulman and I met in 1999 through a mutual friend (I – also Brian – go by “Selltiz” and Brian Schulman goes by “Schulman”). This friend (oddly enough, also named Brian) arranged for the three of us to meet up for a day of dirt bike adventures.

Schulman and I quickly realized that we both shared a knack for computer programming and formed Digital Provisions in June of 2000 as an IT support company. We wrote code, fixed PCs, and even had a stint in retail. But we didn’t love selling cell phones and our customers kept asking us to work on their security, so we pivoted. I do cringe a little thinking back on our early work, which wasn't all that great. But we applied ourselves and set out to be experts in our field, which I believe we eventually pulled off.

A while back I remember attending a soccer game at a local high school and staring up at the Axis camera mounted on the exterior of the building. “Wow,” I thought, “Only a serious industry player could pull off a school security job like that.” Fast forward to today and Digital Provisions is Long Island's leading K12 security provider.

Our sales pitch has always been simple. “Use our open architecture systems so that if we don’t do a great job, you can fire us and hire another qualified company to pick up where we leave off without having to rip out your existing technology.” We’re incredibly proud that many customers have listened to that pitch, and even prouder that very few have left.”

Why Cobalt?

“Almost 25 years after starting the business, Schulman and I saw a need for internal change. We had accomplished everything we had set out to do and it was time for fresh energy to bring the company to the next phase in its growth plan. I'm happy to say we had plenty of companies who wanted to be our new partners and Tyler from Cobalt was initially just one of the many voices trying to get our attention. In fact, he loves to take jabs at me about how I initially ghosted him. But when we sat back and really started looking at the options, we decided to seriously engage with Cobalt.

Cobalt's plan was clear: “Digital Provisions is a great company and there’s no need to mess that up.” Together we mapped out a vision that will benefit our employees by offering them greater opportunities, while also helping our customers by resourcing Digital Provisions appropriately. Throughout our strategic planning process it became clearer and clearer that Cobalt shared the same values as we did. Take care of the employees, take care of customers, and then the company will thrive. I'm truly excited by this opportunity and I so much look forward to helping the folks at Cobalt build an amazing organization.”

— Brian Selltiz, Co-Founder and CEO (2000 – Today)