Starting a small cartographic company had always been an idea of The M Factory's Co-founders, Tracy and Justin Morrill. After graduating from the University of Maryland, the two spent 8 years as employees of MapQuest.com. During their tenure at MapQuest's Columbia, Maryland office they had the opportunity to work with a wide variety of customers and projects.

In the spring of 1998 MapQuest became a publicly traded company. Shortly after the IPO, America Online purchased a majority of MapQuest's stock and became the new owner. In July of 2000 AOL made the decision to shut down the Columbia office.MapQuest offered a few individuals the choice to continue their employment and move to MapQuest's Pennsylvania headquarters. Tracy and Justin were extended this opportunity but instead decided that they wanted to take control of their own destiny. With that decision The M Factory was born. The M Factory was incorporated in September of 2000 and officially opened for business on October 1st of that same year.

What's in a name? Since we've been asked this question on more than one occasion, the letter "M" in our comapny name is derived from Morrill, Maps, and Mulitmedia. We thought of other names but those ideas were already in use (or cyber squatted). We decided upon the use of hyphens because without them our URL looks more like "Them Factory".