Mark O’Brien, the president of Rocket Digital, Inc., has been involved in the video field since the early 1980’s. In 1983, he formed his first company, Fast Forward, in San Francisco, California. As the Bay Area’s first video duplicating facility, Fast Forward began servicing the needs of a growing marketplace for video services, such as 1” broadcast duplication for television, video editing, closed-captioning, and satellite delivery of audio and video advertising “spots.”

Fast Forward grew in 14 years from 2 business partners to a staff size of over 45 people across 5 main departments: customer services and scheduling, tape operations, shipping and prep, accounting, and editing. Fast Forward’s client list was a virtual “who’s-who” of the business world: Bank of America, Apple Computer, Hewlett-Packard, Intel, as well as every major Advertising Agency and PR Firm used Fast Forward on a daily basis.

In 1993, Mark O’Brien was notified that the Mayor of San Francisco had, by Proclamation, declared January 27th, 1993 “Fast Forward Day in San Francisco,” This honor came as the result of Fast Forward’s historical commitment to advance and promote the Bay Area’s Film and Video culture to outside markets. In addition, Fast Forward was also known for it’s technological “firsts.” Fast Forward was the first company in the world to close caption a live regional sporting event (the Golden State Warriors basketball team), and the first to transmit audio commercials from one central “hub” (Fast Forward) to hundreds of radio stations simultaneously.