Company: SyNet Inc.
Location: 205 Hallene Road, Ste. 101, Warwick
Employees: 35
President: Jeffrey S. Deckman
Year Founded: 1987
Annual sales: $4.2 million
JEFFREY S. DECKMAN, president of SyNet Inc.
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”We not only pave the information superhighway, but we help people get connected to it,” said Jeffrey S. Deckman, president of SyNet Inc. in Warwick.
Since the late 1980s Deckman’s company has been installing networking equipment and hardware in businesses in Rhode Island, around New England, as well as in New York. But in the last five years the company has made real strides growing from annual sales of $800,000 in the mid-1990s to more than $4 million for the fiscal year ending December 31 1999.
SyNet recently opened a second location in Portsmouth, N.H., and is planning to open a third in Manhattan by the end of the year.
”That growth really began over a three-month period in 1995,” Deckman said. “It’s an interesting game you play in this business. We bid a lot and we got all of the bids, so it was one of our best year’s, but”
But the demand was high. Deckman didn’t let it overwhelm him. In fact, he said, it’s how he got into the networking business in the first place.
”At the time I owned a business in New Jersey working on cable installation,” he said. “When in 1985, we were contacted by a guy who wanted us to install a data networking system for him. I didn’t know anything about it at that time, and gave them a price I thought was way to high for us to win the bid- but we won it anyway.”
Soon after, Deckman began doing more work installing networks, much of which was in Rhode Island. Finding that he had discovered a real niche market, he suggested to his partners at the time that they change the focus of the company.
”It became clear that networking was the place to be,” he said. “But they weren’t interested. So we worked out a deal where I sold them my shares of that company and I opened SyNet with $17,000.”
And though Deckman said it took a few years for SyNet to “migrate” from some cable installation to all networking, he said the results have been nothing but exciting.
”We are a real live company that services the heck out of our clients,” he said. “We are batting 1,000 and have never defaulted.”
SyNet specializes in providing design, engineering and installation services for fiber optic and copper cabling systems, the installation of hardware, as well as the creation of management solutions for voice, video and data communications within buildings and throughout campus environments.
SyNet’s current client list includes: GTE; AAA Southern New England; CytoTheraputics; Bryant College; CVS; Bay State Gas; Energy USA; Leviton Electrical Division; U.S. Maritime Securities; Dartmouth Medical Center; The Big East Conference; Hewlett Packard; Massachusetts Port Authority; Speidel/Textron; Rhode Island School of Design; United States Postal Service; State of Rhode Island; Gilbane Builders; The Washington Trust Company, Salve Regina University; and Prudential Securities.
Deckman calls himself and all of his employees “Information Technology Architects” because much of their work includes designing the right kind of network for individual companies.
”We have to think about how we are going to deliver the technology to our clients, what they need, and how we can best give it to them,” he said.
Even in the highly competitive Information Technology field, the company excels at training employees and keeping them, Deckman said. All SyNet technicians are trained and certified.
”I could count on one hand the number of people who left in the past five years,” he said. “Like other companies is this field we face a shortage of IT workers, but we provide quite a bit of on- the-job training, and make sure that all of our employees are working as a team.”
Teamwork, Deckman said, is at the heart of the company’s success.
”Like any other chain, we are only as strong as our weakest link,” he said. “So we really pay attention to the needs of our employees as well as the needs of the company.”
If it sounds too good to be true, Deckman’s not done. He’s calling the company’s latest project the “wave of the future.” It’s called a “Smart Building,” and according to Deckman there is already one in the works for Providence.
”The idea is to create a communication network almost as a fourth utility,” he said. In essence, the landlord would provide the necessary cabling and infrastructure for tenants to outsource their networking.
”The design makes it easier to tenants to get the networking they need to be successful at a cost that they can afford,” Deckman said. “It makes the building more attractive for tenants on the side of the landlord, and promotes longevity among tenants.”
The design has already been implemented and installed by SyNet in a few buildings in the New York area, where Deckman did much of his research for the project.
”In the summer of 1998, I pretty much lived in Manhattan,” he said. “The whole time was spent gaining knowledge and figuring out how we could really make the plan work.”
SyNet is working with the Koffler Group on Rhode Island’s first “Smart Building” which will be created in the historic Owen building in downtown Providence at the corner of Pine and Dyer Street, also home to Cappricio restaurant.
”We are in the process now of doing an infrastructure audit of the building,” Deckman said. “Then we will sit down with all of the building’s tenants to see what their needs are. It’s really progressive thinking.”
For Deckman, the “Smart Building” is a natural progression for SyNet, one he believes might become its own business one day.
But he said, any new business that is created would always be connected to the Rhode-Island based SyNet.
”We have been able to really diversify ourselves,” he said. “We’ve been really creative. We have been relatively stealthy, and haven’t really put our banner all the way up, but we are in the process of doing that now, and we are excited to be a part of the hottest industry in the world.”
