Losh Communications acquires Telephone Professionals Inc.

With the addition of Joe Stanley at Losh Communications, nearly 70 years of experience in the telecommunications industry is shared between two people in the company.

Steve Losh, the company's founder and president, has been in it for 39 years, and Stanley, Losh Communications' new operations manager, adds another 30 years of experience.

To put Stanley's experience to work for Losh Communications, located at 1408 S. Glenstone, Losh purchased Stan-ley's telephone systems business, Tele-phone Professionals Inc.

"I needed someone with stability in here and needed more help," Losh said.

Losh finalized the acquisition of Stan-ley's business, which he had owned and operated for about four years, in late 2001. The purchase amount was not disclosed.

Along with his experience, Stanley al-so brings a customer base of about 300 clients. Losh Communications now has a customer base between 1,000 and 1,300 clients, Losh said.

While the two owners operated the same type of business, they specialized in different brands. Telephone Profes-sionals featured Panasonic systems and Losh Communications is a dealer for Avaya telephone systems, an AT&T spin off.

The business telephone systems the combined company now sells include telephone cabling, data cabling for computer networks, voice mail products, fax lines, and music and messages on hold "Pretty much anything related to the telephone system inside a person's business," Stanley said.

Losh, who started the company in 1990 after retiring from AT&T, employs nine. Stanley was actually a previous employee of Losh back in the early 1990s.

What started as a one-man operation out of Losh's home, Losh Communi-cations soon began to grow, and after two years in business, Losh employed five full-time technicians.

"I started doing contract work (for AT&T) ... the following day after I retired," Losh said of the beginnings. He had worked for AT&T since 1963. "My intention was to not grow at all."

However, he said, "It started growing almost immediately."

As a result of that growth, Losh Com-munications became a family business, which Losh runs with the help of sons Mark and Matt and wife Violet.

Losh said he is the only exclusive Avaya dealer in Springfield, and has been a business partner with the company since 1994, when it was still known as AT&T.

Stanley began his telecommunications career in 1972 working for the Air Force as a telephone technician, installing "telephone central office equipment," he said.

Stanley started Telephone Profes-sionals in May 1997 with a business partner, whom he did not name.

According to Losh, experience is a big plus, but in an ever-changing industry new technology must always be learned. He said one of the benefits to being an Avaya dealer is the available tech support and in-house training, called Avaya University.

The school consists of live classes that are broadcast via satellite to Losh's conference room.

Losh said telephones are set up for technicians to ask the Avaya instructor questions by pressing a "raise hand" button.

"It's live interaction," Stanley added. "By coming here I have access to the training. I've been getting caught up on the latest software versions of the phone systems and capabilities."

The lessons are broadcast nationwide from Denver and are shown every day, all day long. Losh said his technicians have to schedule the sessions in advance.

"That's one real advantage I think we have over our competition," he added. "I don't think there's anything like that anywhere else."

Another technology new to the area is wireless connections, Losh said.

"We're starting to get a big push on wireless for business computers and data," he said.

Losh said they already have two local clients using the new system: Kraft Inc. and Youngblood Motors.

They said Kraft is connected from the main plant to an office on Bennett, and Youngblood is connected from the main office to the used car lot across Camp-bell.

"It provides a connection between buildings when in some instances it's not (physically) possible," Stanley said. "As long as you have line of sight, you can put the antennas on the roof."

Stanley said it's useful when two buildings are separated by a highway and cannot be crossed with cable lines. The phone systems are tied together, he added, so by simply dialing personal ex-tensions individuals can be reached as if they were in the same building.

"That's what Kraft is doing they're doing that with their computer network and their phone system over here," Stan-ley said.

So far in his new position, Stanley has worn many hats.

"Basically," he said, "in any small company you do whatever needs to be done. With my own company I still went out on service calls for customers and I ran the company itself. The difference is that now I can go home in the evening and I'm not figuring out bids all evening long. That's a huge advantage. I have other people for help. When there's a problem, there's not only other technicians to discuss the problem with, but there is the Avaya tech support that we could call."