Growing Assets, LLC can trace its roots back to 1954 when Charles Tomlinson started a small forestry consulting firm in northwest Alabama. Forest management was in its infancy and landowners had few markets for their timber. Consequently it had relatively low value and only the most progressive landowners were spending money to improve their resources. Over the next 20 years, as more markets developed, the demand for timber increased and so did its value. The consulting business grew as more landowners saw the potential in owning timberland. By the mid-1990s the business that had come to be known as Tomlinson & Associates was actively managing thousands of acres of land for both small and large landowners. These owners, seeing the potential for a return on investment, were now spending money to manage, improve, and protect their natural resources when only a few decades before they looked upon the land as simply “holding the world together”.

In 1997, Charles’ son Stephan took over as President of Tomlinson & Associates and continued providing management and consulting services to forest landowners. Through the transition it became apparent that much of the information generated over the past 40 years about the management of clients’ land was difficult to find and was in jeopardy of being lost. This led to the creation of the Growing Assets^TM Information Management Service; a project that began as a simple data storage system, and grew into a multi-faceted and interactive software tool used to run the business.