The best known Iron Mountain storage facility is a high-security storage facility in a former limestone mine at Boyers, Pennsylvania near the city of Butlerin the United States. It began storing records in 1954 and was purchased by Iron Mountain in 1998. It is here that Bill Gates stores his Corbisphotographic collection in a refrigerated cave 220 feet (67 m) underground.[1]
Iron Mountain has additional underground storage facilities in the United States and the rest of the world. Most of the company's over 1,000 storage locations are in above-ground leased warehouse space located near customers.
The company was started by Herman Knaust, who had made his fortune growing and marketing mushrooms.[2] In 1936, needing more space to grow his product, he purchased a depleted iron ore mine and 100 acres (0.40 km2) of land in Livingston, New York for $9,000.[2] By 1950, the mushroom market had shifted and Knaust was looking for alternative uses for his mine, which he had named "Iron Mountain".
Amid widespread Cold War fears, Knaust saw a business opportunity in protecting corporate information from nuclear attack and other disasters. In 1951 the company, now named "Iron Mountain Atomic Storage Corporation", opened its first underground "vaults" and its first sales office in the Empire State Building, about 125 miles (201 km) south.[3] Iron Mountain's first customer was East River Savings Bank, who brought microfilm copies of deposit records and duplicate signature cards in armored cars for storage in the mountain facility. In 1978, the company opened its first above-ground records-storage facility.
During the 1980s, the company expanded beyond New York, opening facilities in New Jersey and throughout New England. In 1988, Iron Mountain extended its reach into 12 more U.S. markets by acquiring Bell & Howell Records Management, Inc.[4] Since 1980, Iron Mountain has acquired more than 200 companies, growing both the company's geographic footprint and its service offerings. Revenue over this period increased nearly 1,000 fold from $3 million in 1981 to $2.7 billion at the end of 2007.
In 2004, Iron Mountain formed Iron Mountain Digital, following the acquisition of Connected Corporation,[5] a maker of online PC backup software. A year later, Iron Mountain Digital added LiveVault,[6] a provider of online backup software for server data. In 2007 Iron Mountain acquired Stratify Inc.,[7] one of the larger e-discovery service providers at the production end of the Electronic Discovery Reference Model (EDRM).[8]
In June 2008, Bob Brennan,[9] 48, became the company's president and chief executive officer, following Richard Reese,[10] who served 27 years as CEO. Brennan joined Iron Mountain in 2004 as president of North America after the company acquired Connected Corporation, where he was chairman and chief executive officer.
Security magazine recently named Iron Mountain to its Security 500 survey, an annual ranking of the nation’s most secure companies. Iron Mountain was its industry’s sole representative in the category of business services. Published in the magazine’s November issue, the Security 500[11] ranks companies using several metrics such as the percentage of a company’s revenue spent on security. The survey tracks 16 vertical markets to serve as a benchmarking tool for companies.
For the fifth consecutive year, Fortune magazine named Iron Mountain to its list of the “World’s Most Admired Companies,” the definitive report card on corporate reputation. Iron Mountain ranked second in its industry category of Diversified Outsourcing Services.[12] The industry rankings reflect feedback from executives, directors and analysts who rated Iron Mountain among its industry peers on nine key attributes of reputation, from investment value to quality of management.[citation needed]
In April 2009, Iron Mountain's Digital Record Center for Images was honored as a Product of the Year by the Massachusetts Network Communications Council in the category Cloud Computing, Virtualization and Data Warehousing/Storage.[13]
he company has received media attention for losing or misplacing customer files and data, particularly tapes containing private information such as home addresses and Social Security numbers. In May 2005, Time Warner disclosed that a container of 40 unencrypted backup tapes containing the personal information of 600,000 current and former employees had disappeared while being transported in an Iron Mountain van that made 18 other stops in Manhattan that day. After the loss, Time Warner began encrypting its tapes, and Iron Mountain advised its other clients to do the same.[14][15] A year later, tapes containing personal information for about 17,000 Long Island Railroad employees were lost while in transit to the railroad's office, along with tapes belonging to the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs being shipped in the same vehicle.[16]
In August 2007, the company began retrofitting its unmarked vans and trucks with a new security and alarm system using chain of custody technology to reduce the exposure of customer data to possible loss. Among other security features, the system uses radio frequency authentication and real-time tracking capabilities to help prevent "mysterious disappearances" of tapes, or their actual removal from the vehicle, during transit.[17]
In July 2006, a fire completely destroyed a leased six-story company warehouse in London.[18] The paper records of 600 customers,[19] including client files stored by several prominent London law firms, were lost.[20] Also destroyed were the medical records of up to 240,000 patients of Chelsea and Westminster Hospital.[19] The London Fire Brigade later concluded that the fire was caused by arson.[21]One day earlier, a smaller fire believed to have been caused by contractors making roof repairs damaged a company warehouse in Ottawa, Canada.[22]
References
- ^ "Under Iron Mountain". National Press Photographers' Association. June 4, 2005.
- ^ a b Iron Mountain's peak performance makes it BBJ's Company of the Year
- ^ Iron Mountain Corporate History
- ^ C. Richard Reese: Iron Man
- ^ Iron Mountain to Acquire Connected Corporation
- ^ Consolidation Reshapes Online Backup Market
- ^ Iron Mountain acquires Stratify for $158M
- ^ Electronic Discovery Reference Model (EDRM)
- ^ Bob Brennan
- ^ Richard Reese profile
- ^ Additional details on the Security 500, along with the full ranking
- ^ World’s Most Admired Companies, Fortune 2009
- ^ MassNetComms honors Kamen, Miner, Markey, among others
- ^ "Time Warner Says Data on Employees Is Lost". The New York Times. May 3, 2005.
- ^ "Whoops! We Seem to Have Misplaced Your Identity". The New York Times. May 8, 2005.
- ^ "Personal data of NY transit employees lost". MSNBC. April 27, 2006.
- ^ "Iron Mountain retrofits truck fleet with self-designed security system". Computerworld. August 6, 2007.
- ^ "Paper warehouse destroyed in fire". BBC. July 13, 2006.
- ^ a b "Alarm as NHS files go up in smoke". TheLatest.com. January 17, 2007.
- ^ "Iron Mountain fires prompt users to hasten hunt for backup options". Techworld. August 7, 2006.
- ^ "Iron Mountain 2007 Annual Report".
- ^ "Two Iron Mountain facilities hit by fire". Computerworld. July 25, 2006.
Further reading
- Network World, “Iron Mountain Talks Off-Site Storage Including in Caves,” 07/24/08)
- Boston Globe, “Ascent to the top of Iron Mountain”, 06/29/08
- Mass High Tech, “Iron Mountain Digital Doubles its R&D Plant,” 05/30/08
- CSO Magazine, “The Paper Chain,” 02/27/08
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