Goodwill's Encoding of Auto Accident Reports into TRACView.com's Online System Provides Training and Employment Opportunities for Local Citizens

Goodwill Industries has recently teamed with TRACView.com, a Lansing-based company that processes law enforcement agencies' traffic accident reports. The arrangement gives data entry experience to citizens enrolled in Goodwill's workforce development programs. It also assists TRACView.com in its pledge to Law Enforcement Agencies (LEAs) to quickly transform their hand-written reports into easily-searchable online forms. "TRACView" gets its name by combining the first two letters of the word "traffic" - TR - with the first two letters of the word "accident" - AC.

To work on the TRACView.com system, participants in Goodwill's workforce development programs must first pass background checks. They are then trained to read LEA's scanned accident reports and to encode details into TRACView.com's web-based software program. Traffic accident reports usually become available online to individuals and insurance companies within 24 hours of the report being scanned. This digital alternative to hard copy storage allows insurance companies and citizens to easily locate reports 24-7.

Goodwill employs one full-time employee and one part-time employee at its Battle Creek facility to encode data into the TRACView.com system. Program participants who complete the training requirements are also assigned to work at a data entry station. Officials anticipate that Goodwill's role will steadily grow as TRACView.com contracts with more LEAs across the country.

"This arrangement with TRACView.com allows Goodwill to give direct data entry experience to program participants," said Rhonda Ostrander-Cook, Goodwill's vice president of workforce development. The very first person this summer to learn the TRACView.com process exceeded every expectation. She is a young single mom, eager to add a positive work experience to her resume. After training in our supportive environment, she was able to accurately enter twice the amount of information in the allotted time. She is on her way to getting a good-paying job utilizing the skills and documented experience that she has.

Established in Lansing in 2003, TRACView.com now contracts with about 80 police departments across the United States, with a large part of its customer base located in Michigan. The company has routinely employed professional data processors to encode details into its system and views its new relationship with Goodwill as the start of a lasting venture.

"We see our work in Battle Creek with Goodwill as the creation of a long-term, strategic partnership," stated Dan Puuri, Managing Partner of Docview LLC, dba TRACView.com. "We were impressed with Goodwill's Fort Custer Industrial Park facility, which is ISO 9001:2000 registered in manufacturing. Goodwill has high quality control standards, and those standards are evident with the work they have performed for us thus far."