Our Philosophy
As a company, we apply Biblical principles to the world of technology in order to help our customers and our team innovate and grow. We care about our customers and want them to succeed. We do what we say we’re going to do. We work hard. We treat our team well. We grow without borrowing money. With BrightSide, we help businesses in the hospitality industry innovate and grow by providing software to help them get more bookings and save time managing their rental properties.
Our History
Forty-five years in one industry. Rebuilt more times than we can count.
BrightSide is older than most of the software it competes with, and newer than all of it. The company you’d sign with today was formed in 2006. The expertise behind it goes back a quarter-century further.
1981 – The first version
Charles Hawkins writes Rental Management for some of the first short-term rental agencies in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee. Installable software, running on the hardware of the day, built for people managing cabins by hand.
The 1980s and 1990s – Version after version
Rental Management is rewritten and expanded continuously as the industry changes around it. Charles builds it alongside the agencies using it, which is a habit that never went away.
2003 – RM4
Charles and his eldest son, Emmett, rewrite the software as a web-based application titled RM4. It gains traction across the Pigeon Forge and Gatlinburg market.
2006 – A new company
Emmett forms Hawkins Computer Services and takes the software forward. His brother Raymond joins him the following year.
2015 – A new platform
We launch a new version on an entirely new technology stack and rename the software BrightSide Rental Management. The second ground-up rebuild in twelve years.
2024 – BrightSide
The name is shortened, because too many people assumed we managed rentals rather than built the software that manages them.
Today – The next rebuild, in progress
We’re moving BrightSide onto a modern Vue front end, screen by screen, without ever taking the software away from you. The payoff is a system that works as well on a phone in a parking lot as it does at a desk. It’s the fourth ground-up modernization since 1981, and the pattern holds: we rebuild the foundation about once a decade and improve the house every week.
BrightSide ships updates weekly, and often daily. Our very first client is still with us. Some of the early adopters still affectionately call it RM4.
Our Team
BrightSide is a division of Hawkins Computer Services, LLC, a privately held company owned by brothers Emmett and Raymond Hawkins. Our offices are located in Maryville, Tennessee and Panama City Beach, Florida. Emmett oversees the Florida office and our team of BrightSide developers and support staff. Raymond oversees the Tennessee office and Ankerpoint Marketing, the division of our company dedicated to helping clients grow their businesses through advertising, beautiful websites, SEO, social media management, and more.
Whether you manage 20 properties or a thousand, BrightSide is here to provide the best support in the industry. When other companies use AI and their knowledge base masquerading as support, we prefer to help our clients the old fashioned way, with human contact and communication.
