Scott Patsiga, Visionary and President of Telaid, reflects on Telaid's history in this special blog post commemorating the company's 40 year Anniversary.
This year marks 40 years since Telaid was founded. Started as a telephony provider, Telaid is now an essential technology integrator partner to many Fortune 500 enterprises. We design, deploy and support critical technologies from point of sale to automation technologies, wireless and physical security, just to name a few. From a small start-up with a few employees to a multi-million-dollar business with more than 350 employees, Telaid has seen much change over the past 40 years. Yet the heart of who we are has stayed the same and our core values have persisted. I believe this strong foundation and commitment to our customers are what have allowed us to thrive and evolve over the course of our 40-year history.
Telaid was founded when a major financial services provider asked founder, Tom Patsiga, if he could install the Hoot N’ Holler squawk box solution in a new office that was scheduled to open in a matter of a few weeks. Tom was able to meet their aggressive timeline and delivered a quality, fully functional solution, leading the client to request his help installing the same solutions across dozens of offices across the United States. After some hesitation, Tom worked directly with the client to identify the scope of work, resources required and critical success factors. Based on that project, Telaid was born.
The project was challenging and there were no technology tools we have today like mobile phones or even email to facilitate collaboration. Yet Tom was creative and devised a process for ensuring consistent, quality deployments across disparate locations. The team used color-coded equipment and a series of Polaroid pictures in conjunction with detailed instructions delivered to field service technicians at each location to ensure consistency.
This single example demonstrates that, while Telaid may operate among vastly different technologies today and a different client profile, our roots are founded in agility, commitment to the customer, and doing whatever it takes. Our agility allowed us to pivot and extend our services to other industries after the economic fallout of 9/11. Our “do whatever it takes” mentality allowed us to build innovative processes to deliver even beyond our own comfort zone early in the company’s history. And our commitment to customers has led us to serve an ever-growing number of some of the largest, best enterprises in the world.
It has not always been easy, and Telaid’s history is built on both our successes and our failures. Our story is one of resilience, dedication, and unrelenting pursuit of continuous improvement. Now, 40 years later, we are simultaneously an entirely new company and the same company we used to be. We are better, wiser, and more committed than ever before. We are Telaid. And we can’t wait to see what the next 40 years holds! We look forward to sharing with you stories, insights and lessons learned throughout this year’s anniversary celebration. Cheers to the future!
