About EffingTech
Built from experience.
Still curious enough to keep building.
EffingTech is an independent software, web, and technology studio in Effingham, Illinois—built around useful ideas, practical solutions, and the belief that good technology should make something clearer, easier, or better.
How EffingTech got here
Technology experience, redirected toward the work I enjoy most.
EffingTech was built from decades of real-world technology experience—from help desks and infrastructure to enterprise IT leadership, project management, websites, and software development. After years of managing technology for organizations large and small, Mel Hirtzel created EffingTech to focus on the part of technology he enjoys most: solving problems, building useful things, and helping businesses make better technology decisions.
Today that takes several forms: original Windows applications, purposeful business websites, search visibility and digital improvements, custom creative work, and technology consulting when an organization needs experienced guidance.
Deep roots in Effingham
A modern business with a very local backstory.
EffingTech may be a modern technology company, but my family’s roots in Effingham County go back generations. Both sides of my family came from early farming and dairy families in the area, and my parents later spent 30 years operating Hirtzel Coin Laundry in Effingham.
Growing up around family farms and a small local business shaped how I think about work: know the people you serve, do good work, and stand behind it. EffingTech looks very different from the businesses that came before it, but those values are still very much a part of it.
A little background
From hands-on support to enterprise leadership—and plenty in between.
Mel’s career has included senior support, help desk and service operations leadership, global IT operations, Director of IT roles, business relationship management, enterprise project management, MSP leadership, and independent consulting. The common thread has always been turning technology into something the business can actually use.
Experience is useful, but only if it helps produce better work. EffingTech combines that background with the creative side of technology—building, designing, improving, and helping people make sensible decisions about what comes next.
What we do now
Software. Websites. Consulting. Useful things.
If you have an idea to build, a website that needs to work harder, or a technology decision that needs an experienced second set of eyes, that is a good place to start.