Kevin Adolph

Kevin Adolph and Larry Holt

Some people have a talent for recognizing a business opportunity when it comes their way, seizing it and turning it into a huge success. That’s what happened to two 38-year-old, former city workers turned entrepreneurs, Kevin Adolph and Larry Holt. They started SoftRight, a provider of financial and revenue applications for municipal governments, in 1995. Along the way, they saw an opportunity to modernize an old municipal finance software package developed by a Danvers firm, and their company has been growing ever since.

Located in Westford, SoftRight offers Windows-based programs for payroll, accounting, treasury and tax-collection applications as well as product training and consulting services. “Today, the company employs nine people, with revenues in excess of $1 million,” says SoftRight president Adolph.

Adolph and Holt are both 1991 UMass Lowell graduates in computer science. “I think the most valuable lesson the University taught me was the importance of following through on projects and meeting deadlines,” says Holt, the company’s CEO. “It’s such a large element of a successful business, and it all started in college.” “Programming is one of those skills that comes from practice,” says Adolph. “UMass Lowell provided a great formal vehicle for that practice.”

To date, more than 70 of the 351 cities and towns in the Commonwealth are using SoftRight’s products and services. “We’ve had inquiries from neighboring states like New Hampshire and Connecticut, but right now we want to stay focused on Massachusetts.”