There’s no shortage of entrepreneurs whose success stories began among the halls of Harvard. Bill Gates dropped out after two years to start Microsoft. Ray Dalio launched Bridgewater at the end of his first year. Mark Zuckerberg coded the first version of Facebook from Kirkland House.
Our founder, Garrett Burke, was not a restless student, but the Associate Director of Occupational Safety at the university for almost a decade. In this role, he was responsible for ensuring the safety of Harvard’s students, faculty, staff and partners during major construction projects and facility operations.
With billions of dollars of projects underway and hundreds of contractors, suppliers, and vendors working around the Harvard campus, Garrett needed a way to understand contractor risk. He wasn’t satisfied with the archaic solutions for compliance and prequalification, so he designed an internal solution with the support of Harvard faculty and staff.
They built a platform that enabled contractors to do their best work. It allowed Harvard to engage each partner with intelligent assessments, collaborate together on risk mitigation plans, and review objective performance data to consistently learn and improve. And with his construction-industry colleagues always in mind, Garrett focused on building software that made the entire user experience and enrollment process simple for his partners.
In 2008, at the request of the contracting community and with Harvard’s backing, Highwire was spun out as an independent company. Since then, the world’s most admired companies, including Google, Skanska, and BOND, are using Highwire to mitigate contractor risk and deliver Contractor Success.
In October 2025, Highwire took a major step forward in its mission to make contractors successful by joining forces with Veriforce, a global leader in contractor management and supply chain risk solutions. This strategic partnership brings together Highwire’s construction-focused risk insights with Veriforce’s scale, safety expertise, and worldwide network, enabling the delivery of even stronger tools and broader opportunities for clients and contractors.
Becoming part of Veriforce positions Highwire to accelerate innovation, expand into new markets, and continue delivering exceptional value to the organizations and contractors that rely on Highwire every day.
Garrett Burke
Founder
