In 1998, company founders Mike Johnson and Tyler Salisbury were working at a North Carolina-based managed hosting company. Salisbury was the manager of the company’s Network Solutions Group, which covered customer-premise IT Security projects; while Johnson was a Senior Security Engineer with extensive industry certifications.

Both were passionate about data security and customer relationships, and forged a bond working together to deploy firewalls and security solutions at some of the region’s largest companies. The Network Solutions Group was ultimately disbanded as the company began to focus more on managed hosting. While Johnson remained the company’s senior security expert, Salisbury went on to become the top salesperson in the hosting division, while still handling the sales aspects of all customer-premise security projects. As the company changed hands in early 2001, Johnson remained as the new company’s Director of IT Security, continuing his work with datacenter and customer premise firewalls, while Salisbury moved on to a Managed Security Services Provider, quickly becoming the Southeast region’s top sales representative.

Johnson and Salisbury stayed in touch, and their chemistry would lead to an eventual partnership: the two joined forces to launch Webfargo in December of 2001. Since both had seen first-hand the devastating effects of poorly-maintained security, Webfargo’s charge was then, as it is today, to prevent security incidents through proactive security services.

At Webfargo, Johnson specialized in engineering and operations, while Salisbury handled the sales and administrative duties of the company. The two quickly developed a suite of managed and professional services and immediately started landing clients – most of which are still Webfargo clients to this day!

Since that first customer signed on in January of 2002 to today, Webfargo’s dual commitment to proactive security and customer service has never wavered. The two founders remain active in the day-to-day business operations of the company and committed to the company’s mission.