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After receiving
an honorable discharge from the USAF, he started his first
business in direct sales, which led him to become a Sales
Manager for a New Home Construction Company in Port Charlotte,
FL. Under his leadership, the company quickly became the largest
new home construction company in Charlotte County and one
of the largest in the state of Florida as well.
That experience enabled him to start a New Home Construction
Company (Florida Lifestyles Enterprises, Inc.) and a Real
Estate Company (Compu-Search Realty, Inc.), both of which
became successful enterprises that provided new homes for
hundreds of customers.
After suffering from a bad accident, and being
unable to work for six months, Dick decided to sell his two
companies and work as an independent real estate professional.
He quickly became a leader in local property sales, while
beginning to consider starting a new business - an international
shopping club. In March of 1997, Dick left behind over 100
real estate listings to do the research and development to
start his new business.
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Dick started the new enterprise in an apartment
over his garage and incorporated it in June of 1997. Soon
after he started to hire the Club's first employees, moved
to a small 1,200 square foot office and launched the company's
marketing website - www.clubshop.com |
| Within a few years, the DHS Club membership
numbered in the hundreds of thousands and in May of 2000,
the company moved into a 3,452 square foot building, at
its current location on Placida Road in Englewood, Florida. |
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During early 2001, The DHS Club starting adding international
stores to the online ClubShop
Mall as well as expanded the number of stores available
to U.S. Members.
The ClubShop Mall now offers convenient, online shopping
at over 500 stores, where DHS Club Members can earn Club Reward
Points on all of their purchases. Our ClubShop Online Shopping
Mall has all the major online shopping stores such as Old
Navy, Staples, Best Buy, Office Depot, Target, Dominos Pizza,
Upper Deck, Dell, Sears, Kohls, Marriott Hotels, Dick's Sporting
Goods, Hickory Farms, Sephora, Home Depot and many more online
shopping stores from around the world.
A new Training Center, the e-Business Institute, opened in
July 2001 to provide our more enterprising Members with online
marketing courses. In 2004 and 2005 the e-Business Institute,
was expanded to include sales management and director courses.
In May 2002, The DHS Club released and test marketed an offline
shopping program, using the ClubRewards Card with participating
Merchants, so that DHS Club Members can save money and earn
Reward Points on their offline purchases with restaurants,
florists, salons, car repair shops and many other types of
merchants and stores around the world.
In September of 2002, the DHS Club purchased a large parcel
of land with a cottage, on a private lake in the Blue Ridge
mountains of Tennessee, to create a corporate retreat property.
The property has been named "The Retreat at Ducks' Nest
Lake" and has had many improvements made to it, including
the construction of a log cabin, and a Lodge and Conference
Center. Land has also been cleared to add a number of additional
cabins over the next few years.
In 2005 and 2006, the DHS Club had 12 consecutive months
of positive net growth of Members and in sales volume. The
first European
Sales Convention was held in Brussels, Belgium in May
of 2006 and the first Italian
and Greek
Sales Training Conferences were conducted in September of
2006. Record sales were seen at www.clubshop.com
in 2006, with new international ClubShop Malls being opened
in Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia, the Netherlands,
Belgium, Italy, Greece, France, Ireland, New Zealand and South
Africa.
In December 2006, the DHS Club and the ClubShop Mall were
featured on the television show, "The
World's Greatest", which was shown on cable networks
throughout the United States.
In February 2007, the DHS Club opened the first Caribbean
ClubShop Mall in the Netherlands Antilles and held its first
Caribbean Conference on the island of Curacao. In April 2007,
DHS Club added a new International Mall ClubShop Malaysia.
In May 2007, the first South American ClubShop Mall was opened
in Suriname. In addition, ClubShop Sweden and Switerland were
opened.
In January 2008, the DHS Club released a new site, www.glocalgeneration.com
which provides a personalized marketing website for our VIP
members to refer prospective Members to register for a Free
DHS Club Membership
As the DHS Club membership grows, so does the Club's "Group
Buying Power", providing our Members with even better
consumer and income opportunities and to help us accomplish
our goal to become the largest consumer group in the world.
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