Reprinted from the Milwaukee Business Journal bio of 40 Under 40 winners

The Atari "Pong" game was very popular during Craig Haskins' teenage years. But while his friends were satisfied playing the original, Haskins spent hours hand-programming a Commodore VIC-20 to create his own version of the game.

And since joining Knight-Barry Title Inc. in 1996, he has continued to re-invent, using his technology savvy to bring title insurance into the online era and expanding business along the way.

A Florida native, Haskins was lured to Milwaukee by his stepfather and Knight-Barry president and chief executive officer Jeffrey Green. The company had one office in Racine and 15 employees. Haskins, a young, recent college graduate, was taken aback by the company's outdated computer technology. He immediately began updating Knight-Barry's tech infrastructure.

"I thought, 'we can probably set ourselves apart with technology because it's a very archaic industry the way we do things,'" he said.

He was right. Knight-Barry now operates 14 offices and employs more than 150. The company recently expanded into Michigan, and Haskins says he wants to be in Minnesota, Illinois and Florida by the end of 2011.

Haskins' implementation of electronic, Web-based technologies can be credited for much of the growth. The title business is largely based on researching and delivering property deeds and information, he said.

By moving online, Knight-Barry eliminated superfluous phone calls, faxing and mailing. Now, 97 percent of the company's transactions begin through its website.

In 2007, Haskins was appointed by then-Gov. Jim Doyle to the Electronic Recording Council and became the first person to e-record a deed in Wisconsin on Jan. 1, 2009.

"He brought a non-title way of thinking to the title business," said Bush Nielsen, a real estate specialist at Milwaukee law firm Reinhart Boerner Van Deuren SC. "He's completely transformed the way his company does business."

Yet, Haskins isn't satisfied. He's enrolled in Marquette University's MBA program and continuously seeks ways to modernize Knight-Barry's business.

In addition to setting up Facebook and Twitter accounts, Haskins has shot YouTube advice videos for fellow title insurers. He's even looked into how texting and Groupon could be used.

"Anytime there's something hot like that in technology, I want to take a look at it and see if there's any way it can translate to this goofy, archaic title insurance industry," he said.

Read more:Forty Under 40 2011 in the Business Journal www.bizjournals.com/milwaukee