When a company is called Electronic Vaulting Services, providing data storage and emergency backup for companies across America, visitors probably expect to find offices filled with high-tech hardware and computer equipment. Oh sure, desktop computers are here and there, but the most high-tech device in founder and CEO Gayle Rose’s office in the i-Bank Tower may be the squeaky voice box inside the “sales monkey” perched on her bookcase.
“Whenever we made a sale,” says Rose, laughing, “we put this in a slingshot and would fire the monkey down the hallway, just for fun.”
The little toy monkey (right) hasn’t taken flight lately. “We spun off most of our clients — FedEx and First Tennessee, for example — in 2016 and reduced our staff,” she says. “I’m looking at our succession plan right now, considering who might take over this business when I retire.”
Gayle Rose, involved in so many civic endeavors — the Women’s Foundation for a Greater Memphis, Rose Family Foundations, Memphis Symphony Orchestra, and Team Max come to mind, just for starters — retired? That move is still “five or six years” away, she says, but she’s making plans because, she says, “I never do anything in a casual way.”
The hardware that is the heart of EVS is located in Memphis and Washington, D.C. The company headquarters occupy a suite of offices at 5050 Poplar. “I keep the financial engines going, and the staff does the monitoring,” Rose says. “The automatic backup comes up on the computer dashboard, telling us everything has been copied,” she explains, “but we get calls from clients telling us they need a file restored.” As an example, she mentions an attorney going to court who couldn’t retrieve critical files. “They were just — poof — gone. We were able to restore everything within an hour and get him to the courthouse in time.”
A room at EVS displays accolades Rose has earned over the years. Among them are awards naming her one of Business Tennessee’s “100 Most Powerful People, “Humanitarian of the Year” by Diversity Memphis, “Woman of the Year” by Girls, Inc., “CEO of the Year” by Inside Memphis Business — the list goes on. Even so, she admits, “it was important for me to be perceived as a successful businesswoman.” When the opportunity to build EVS came up, she says, “I always have to connect with a mission, and I decided the mission here was to keep our community stable. If we suffered a major loss, we could help businesses recover their data and keep running.”
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Gayle Rose
Gayle Rose in her office at EVS with a Burton Callicott rainbow painting, the first piece she collected by the well-known Memphis artist.
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Cheairs Painting
A Nancy Cheairs painting depicts Rose mourning the death of her son, Max (represented by the tiny feather floating down from the sky).
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"Stairway to Heaven"
”Stairway to Heaven,” inspired by the Led Zeppelin song, was one of the last paintings made by son, Max.
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Portrait of Morgan Rose
Her family means everything to Rose: her sons Morgan, Max, and Mike.
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Portrait of Max Rose
Her family means everything to Rose: her sons Morgan, Max, and Mike.
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Portrait of Mike Rose
Her family means everything to Rose: her sons Morgan, Max, and Mike.
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Tamboli Bronze
The small bronze by Memphian Roy Tamboli, one of Rose’s favorite artists, was a model for a larger piece.
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Signed Shirt
A T-shirt signed by all musicians with the Memphis Symphony while Rose was chair of the board.
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Faces of Memphis Campaign
Rose was featured in a Northwestern Mutual ad series which honored philanthropic Memphians.
Another mission, it seems, was to turn the EVS headquarters into a personal art gallery. By her desk is an oil by former Memphis College of Art master Burton Callicott, depicting the arc of a rainbow. “This was the first Callicott piece I collected,” she says. “He studied light, and sometimes this work is stressful, so I wanted the ambience of peace and beauty that real art can provide.”
“I thought I was going to do this until I knew it was rocking and rolling,” she says. “But then I discovered I really liked managing engineers.
A painting by Memphis artist Nancy Cheairs was commissioned after Gayle’s middle son, Max Rose, died in a car accident in 2009. “That’s me,” indicating a woman standing alone in a field, “and then a feather coming down from the sky represents Max,” she says. “I asked her to convey what it was like to lose a child. There’s this dark moody storm to one side, but then the light comes in. She nailed it.”
Behind her desk is a painting her son created shortly before his death. Rose had been designing the program for Max’s funeral service. “Going through the mail, I found an envelope from his art teacher with a CD inside,” she says. “It contained works I had never seen before, and we put this on the cover.”
Hallways at EVS serve as displays for other prominent artists, such as Ted Faiers, perhaps best known for the First Tennessee Heritage Mural in the downtown lobby of First Horizon Bank, and a photograph by Annie Leibovitz, nationally renowned for her work with Vanity Fair.
Rose admits she never imagined she would be involved with EVS this long. “I thought I was going to do this until I knew it was rocking and rolling,” she says. “But then I discovered I really liked managing engineers. They’re a different breed, you know, and they reminded me of musicians. Let’s just say they get along with machines better than people. So it’s been fun, and I’m really proud of it.”
