About Us
Spreading the gospel to the far ends of the world is Christ’s mandate for every church. Yet, how to do so effectively, even in your own little part of the world, can be a challenge. And once you reach them, how do you keep church members engaged and motivated to stay involved?
According to the Gallup Research Organization, approximately 40 percent (118 million) of all Americans say they regularly attend services. While that number may appear impressive at first glance, it actually means that 60 percent of Americans are not involved which presents a tremendous opportunity for each and every church.
Grapevine Technologies’ Social-Networking Platform is the key to building a ministry’s 24/7 online community and successfully outreaching to others within your community—and beyond.
To remain relevant in the lives of its members, today’s churches must be proactive in outreach and conduct it in a timely and effective manner that people are interested in and comfortable with. That’s social-networking… the fastest growing form of communication in the world.
Grapevine Technologies’ the Vine is a unique church-related social-networking platform. We offer a service that’s affordable, easy to implement and designed to enhance your communication, administration and outreach programs in ways that are meaningful and lasting, while tackling practical issues like how to respectfully generate revenue. We centralize everything and make managing your community easy.
Grapevine Technologies Mission is “To empower churches and non-profit organizations to communicate more effectively, raise funds more efficiently and broaden the reach of their ministries.”
Rafael Simpson
Founder
A born entrepreneur with the heart of a humanitarian, Rafael Simpson started his first company, Madison Apparel, while still an undergraduate at the University of West Florida. After selling it in the largest surf retailer on the Gulf Coast, Simpson interned with Hearts Ablaze Ministries and Interamericana Trading Corporation where he focused on strategic acquisitions and partnerships in Beijing, Shanghai, Puerto Rico, Barbados and the U.S. Simpson is founder of “Know Me, Love Me’, a clothing line that benefits underprivileged American children with the support of many Nashville artists and celebrities. He is also founder of Grapevine Technologies, the first safe and secure online social network for ministries.
Val Delmar
President
As a successful marketing and sales executive, Val Delmar started his career with the world’s second largest retailer, JCPenney. He quickly advanced through management levels in sales, marketing, personnel, buying, store design and product development. He then led development and tactical marketing teams in both the Fashion and Home Divisions in the southeast region of the U.S.
Val moved to retail manufacturing where he was Vice President/Senior Vice President of Sales at Woodside Industries and the Block Corporation. He built businesses in excess of $45 million in annual sales while managing national brands such as Van Heusen, Izod, St. John’s Bay and Geoffrey Bean.
Val has been a field representative with Missionary Ventures International, leading humanitarian trips to third world nations for over 20 years, building schools, feeding centers and churches throughout Central and South America. Val has also served as a Missions Director and Board member for his church as well as currently serving on the Board of Directors of Steve Hill Ministries in Dallas,Texas.
Paul Stewart
CTO
Paul has been designing and developing innovative web sites and applications since the web was text-based and lynx was the most popular browser. He is Founder, Director and still even writes code for Arck Interactive; a boutique Chicago based web development agency focused on custom social network development throughout the United States and internationally. Arck’s clients have included The World Bank, Wiley & Sons Publishing, Garfield Group Interactive, Louisiana State University, Loyola High School and Trivantis Corporation. It was through Arck that Paul was introduced to the Grapevine team and has now joined them as CTO.
Previous to founding Arck in 2007, Paul worked a consultant for Perot Systems at Tufts Medical Center in Boston, MA, where he developed and supported a custom content management portal for one of the largest academic medical communities in the US. Through his experience at Tufts, Paul gained tremendous insight into architecting and supporting scalable, highly available, enterprise class community web applications. Paul also worked extensively for the US DOT developing and managing a wide variety of community based web applications for the Research and Innovative Technology Administration (RITA) and “SAMO”, a Windows application that is still being used nationally to collect data and generate reports on drug and alcohol compliance audits for the DOT. Developing applications for a truly “public” audience redefined Paul’s assumptions on user interface design and helped foster a unique environment for business-public-user communications. Paul’s combination of technical expertise, ability to manage complex software development projects over a broad geography, and keen people skills made him a natural fit for CTO. Paul is an entrepreneur, open-source enthusiast, sci-fi enthusiast, and technical tinkerer/communicator.
Paul received his B.S. from Northeastern University in Boston, MA and completed Master’s work in Communications Protocols and Internet Architectures at Harvard University Extension School in Cambridge, MA.
