Tekserve Community

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Our Staff Community

Computers don't do much of anything on their own, but they are great tools that enable people to do amazing things. As techies, we like the inner details, but as people we are much more interested in the books, films, video, art, music and communications created by our staff and clients. Years ago one of us studied letterpress printing, and it was satisfying to set (and even kern) lead type, and the presses and inks were fascinating. But at the end of the day, the actual text and images printed onto paper were what mattered.

We can't take the least bit of credit for what our staff does the other sixteen hours each day, but we are very proud of their work, and we enjoy reading, watching and listening to it.

Here are a few recent projects by people who also happen to spend some of their time working at Tekserve.

Our Larger Community

Dick and David, who started Tekserve in 1987, met in 1970 at WBAI (listener supported Pacifica public radio in New York before NPR ever existed). Dick had just dropped out of the military industrial complex, David had dropped out of high school. We were techies, and we did techie stuff, but we weren't really there to build recording consoles or radio studios or do remote recordings. We were there to enable the vast outflow of political speech, news, art, music and community discussion that grew out of the "movement" and the people who had something to say and needed a megaphone. We are still techies, but it's still not really about the hardware.

Tekserve is a profit making business, and we keep nearly 200 very creative New Yorkers gainfully employed, but we still care about the city and the world in which we live as much as we did in 1970. Because Macs are so prevalent in the creative community, we get daily requests for donations. We have found that we simply don't have the time, money or ability to vet and support individual artists or projects. However, through donations of hardware, services and money, we do try to support a few of the non-profit cultural and socially progressive organizations in New York. In addition, our employee-directed contribution program allows each of our staff members to designate a non-profit for an annual cash contribution.

Among the organizations that we have recently provided with money or in-kind donations are:

WNYC, The Public Theatre, The Kitchen, American Institute of Graphic Arts, Aids Walk NY, The Moth, StoryCorps, New York Cares, Americares, Brooklyn Academy of Music, God's Love We Deliver, The Bowery Mission, Isadora Duncan Foundation for Contemporary Dance, Fine Arts Work Center, Atlantic Theater Company, The Lower East Side Girls Club, Public Interest Law Students Association, Maysles Institute, Girlsquest, Celebrate Brooklyn, The New York Public Library and numerous others.