Upon Honorable discharge from fulfilling his military contract in May 1975, Dave started work as a debt collector -- repossessing vacuum cleaners for Electrolux. He ultimately became a Branch Manager before year's end.

In 1977, Dave was one of the three brothers that started United Recovery Systems, Inc., also known as URS. URS may now be the largest privately owned collection agency in the world. Dave was a 38% owner and the Executive Vice President in charge of Production and Operations. In addition to collections and operations, Dave was responsible for the automation of United Recovery Systems. During this period, he also attended college at night majoring in Business and Computer Science.

In 1986, Dave sold his ownership in United Recovery Systems to the remaining partners, and went to work marketing the collection system he designed while at URS.

A year later, he was made an offer that he could not refuse, to take over the management of a small collection agency. The agency was originally started in 1975, had eleven collectors collecting about $25,000 per month in fee, and had recently filed for bankruptcy. Two years later that agency had over 100 collectors bringing in over $500,000 per month in fee, earning it about $200,000 per month in profit. Dave left in October of 1989 due to a major difference of opinion with the "semi-retired" owner.

Two months later Dave borrowed $60,000 from a friend and started Nationwide Debt Recovery, Ltd. Nationwide was sold for a $16 Million profit in June 1998. At the time of its sale, NDR had about 150 employees bringing in about $800,000 per month in revenue, which earned it about $425,000 per month in profit.

Dave also started and retains majority ownership (through his Family Limited Partnership) in Southwest Credit Card Services, Ltd., a very successful Debt Buyer; and started and his FLP retains majority ownership in Lonestar Turn-Key Systems, Ltd., a very successful computer application developer. More recently, Dave has started a Internet Server Hosting company by the name of Big Kahuna Hosting, a web site design company by the name of Internet Sites Cheap, an Internet bulletin board development company called Bulletin Boards 'R Us, and has a race car team with the World's Fastest Superbird (6.40 seconds at 244 MPH in the 1/4 mile) called Texas Big Bird.