Business & Community

Tampa Bay's First Professional Webmaster

Tampa Bay Business Journal August 1997 WMNF volunteer Dewey Davis-Thompson approached station manager Rich Eiswerth with an idea. "Dewey had put together a web site, and he told me about the possibilities of cybercasting," Eiswerth said. "We made a pitch to the board of directors, and asked for $10,000 to fund a one-year project." Learn more!

Dewey Davis-Thompson was the first professional webmaster in Tampa Bay, and was noted as a local internet pioneer in the Tampa Bay Business Journal. As the regular technolgy beat writer for the Weekly Planet, a columnist for Computer Friendly News and a reporter for the Tampa Tribune, St. Petersburg Times, WMNF and WUSF Davis-Thompson saw the first stirrings of interest in web sites and web site design in Tampa Bay, Florida. Among the first web site junkies were his friends at Info Haus Cyber Cafe, on Armenia in Tampa, Florida, where Davis-Thompson gave "Surfing Lessons" every Tuesday night for newbies.

In 1996 Davis-Thompson wrote a grant proposal for $10,000 and burned a lot a midnight oil helped to make WMNF the first radio station to broacast from a Tampa Web Site, designed by Clay Bennett, a Pulitzer Prize winner from St. Petersburg, Florida.

Web design for dot com was brand new in 1995, and Internet Adept, Inc. became the first professional Tampa Bay web site design, hosting and search engine placement company, an offshoot of Dewey's company Computer Tutors of Tampa, established in 1991 to help people with email.

Since then Dewey has worked as a consultant and programmer for Planet Partnership, the Tampa Housing Authority, Tampa Theatre, The Tampa Bay Workforce Alliance, American Lymphopa Foundation, American Stage, Ameripanel Homes, Double M Band, The Hough Family Foundation, Tampa Bay Business Guild, Tampabay.tv, Cosmic Cuisine, Voices for Children, The Tampa Bay Children's Chorus, Funtastic Events, Winter Pride Tampa Bay, Heroes of the St. Pete Police and literally hundreds of of other small and larger businesses and organizations.

Learn more about Dewey's amazing web site planning and management skills at InternetAdept.com.