| Love of history, tech turns into distinguished career
A s a teenager growing up in Salt Lake City, Mike Kirby needed a typewriter to fill out a job application for a local grocery store. What he found was a prosperous career that has spanned more than three decades and has helped bring innovation to the industry.
 "I wanted to get a job so I could have some money and hang out with my friends,” recalls Mike, now 52, president and chief operating officer of Truly Title, Inc. “We didn’t have a typewriter. I knew my handwriting was terrible, and I would never get hired at the grocery store if I wrote [the application] out, but I could type."
Kirby’s older sister, who worked for a local title agency, graciously allowed him to use the typewriter in her office as long as he didn’t tell their father, a decorated war veteran who wanted Kirby to forego a job and focus solely on his studies. While completing the application, a gentleman Kirby would later learn was his sister’s boss walked into her office.
"I jumped right up and said, 'Hello sir. How can I help you?'" Mike remembers.
Impressed with his courtesy and business manner, the owner offered Kirby a job that day — mowing the lawn, cleaning the parking lot and cleaning the restrooms. And what started out as a gofer job worked its way into more responsibility.
"I wouldn’t go home until everything on my breakroom table was completed," Mike remembers. "That caught on, because people just starting throwing things on the breakroom table."
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“I realized very quickly that title insurance and the integrity of the public record is kind of akin to freedom.”
Mike Kirby
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As he continued to learn different roles at the title agency, Kirby also fell in love with the research and historical aspects of the industry.
"The research part of it and the historical part of it, working out of the courthouse, was really interesting to me," Mike says. "I started reading anything and everything you could throw at me about real property, rules and laws and insurance codes. I realized very quickly that title insurance and the integrity of the public record is kind of akin to freedom … Nobody really told me that. I just kind of figured it out on my own."
With a spark ignited as a young man, Kirby would go on to several roles in the industry, from mowing the lawn to owning the company, as he puts it.
After serving in the U.S. Army, Kirby became a title operations manager at Landmark Title Co.; a title operations manager/director of operations at Merrill Title Co.; a founder, managing member of Integrated Title Insurance Services and Integrated 1031 Exchange Services.
In 2008, he started and became president and CEO of GreenFolders, Inc., which provides electronic office management software solutions that help businesses become more efficient, using less paper, and collaborating more effectively.
GreenFolders was eventually sold to First American. Kirby then assumed a series of roles with First American Professional Real Estate Services, including director of business development and vice president-operations.
Earlier this year, Kirby joined the former CEO of Title365, Mike Tafoya, to launch Truly Title, which promises to combine relationship-centric title and escrow services with innovative title technology. Truly currently has operations in Texas and Utah.
 Underwritten by Westcor Land Title Insurance Co. and First American Title Insurance Co., Truly is licensed in Florida, Minnesota, New Jersey, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Texas, Utah and Virginia.
Asked what interested him in launching yet another title agency, Kirby says, “There’s a need for an innovative, nimble, tech-forward company that is all based around knowledgeable, quality individuals that use great tech tools to win.
“If you can enable people by passing on a life full of wonderful experiences and great knowledge and know-how that’s the ultimate reward,” he says, further describing his motivation.
When not trying to apply technology to make the homebuying process quicker and more efficient, Kirby and his wife LeAnn (who have four adult children), enjoying traveling.
“We love to travel and we love to spend time on the water,” Mike says.
He also is an avid University of Utah football fan – “GO UTES!!!” he proudly says – and spent many years coaching youth football.
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