For years, Armand Toscano would approach fellow employees asking if they’d want to start a business together.
Toscano, who worked for commercial antenna companies, wasn’t satisfied with the way he was treated at work and felt he could do better.
He had little luck finding a business partner until he met Gerald Neylon.
Neylon had been installing home antennas in Chicago before relocating to Rhode Island, where his wife met Toscano’s wife at nursing school. After exchanging stories about the work each of their husbands did, the men’s wives suggested the pair start a business together.
“We got together and decided to give it a shot,” Toscano said of meeting Neylon.
In 1974, the pair founded Atlantic Antenna Systems out of Toscano’s house. The original business focused on installing home antennas.
Toscano says he kept in touch with contacts he had, which helped the company break into commercial antenna installation. Over the years, these contacts were happy enough with the company’s work that they suggested it expand beyond antennas into other areas, such as service of master antenna television, or MATV; sound; intercom; closed-circuit TV; access control; and nurse call systems.
Then in the early 1980s, the company changed its name to Communications Systems Inc. to reflect the new diversity of its offerings.
Some of the most important sounds in the state are heard thanks to Communications Systems. The company has installed almost all the nurse call systems at Rhode Island Hospital – the state’s largest and only Level 1 trauma center – as well as at Women & Infants Hospital and the Rhode Island Veterans Home. Communications Systems has also installed the sound system responsible for background music at Bally’s Twin River Lincoln Casino Resort.
Toscano says honesty, fair prices and good customer service have helped the business stay open for the past 50 years.
Toscano can remember the days when all the computer systems were analog based. But as computers have become more and more popular and technology has shifted, the company has had no choice but to continue evolving.
“The market was changing, and all the manufacturers were shifting what they were making; we had to keep up,” Toscano said.
But even more important is taking care of employees.
“I try to treat them as best as I can,” Toscano said, noting the office manager has been with the company for 45 years and other technicians have been there for more than 20 years.
Neylon retired in 2009, and since then Toscano has led the company, which he hopes will continue serving customers for many more years.
OWNER: Armand Toscano
TYPE OF BUSINESS: Security system supplier
LOCATION: 44 Albion Road, Suite 101, Lincoln
EMPLOYEES: 13
YEAR FOUNDED: 1974
ANNUAL REVENUE: WND
