J. Carlson Services Inc.

J . CARLSON SERV I CES INC . “We also offer design, implementation, and project management services for projects that are a bit more complex.” The company primarily works with independent phone companies and competitive local exchange carriers (CLEC), extending their capabilities to capture more business faster. “We started JCS at the request of several independent phone companies,” says Carlson, “and we decided to dedicate the company to serving them, which is what we have done for all these years and may very well continue doing into the foreseeable future.” Jeffrey Carlson and his late first wife, Deb Carlson, founded JCS in 1999. At the time, he had over 10 years of industry experience. He recalls, “At the beginning, it was just my wife and me. We worked that way for about two years before hiring our first two employees.” By 2005, the company had grown to six employees as the FTTH revolution took off. Before establishing JCS, Carlson and a partner had founded another company, Optical Solutions, which took on venture capital and was acquired by Calix in 2006. In 2008, Deb Carlson passed away, marking a dark season for the company. At the time, the company had eight employees who took on the company’s day-to-day running as Carlson focused on caring for his two young children. “They kept the company going for about a year and a half as I worked at taking care of myself and my two little children at the time,” he remembers fondly. “They were some great employees, and they carried the company through a difficult time.” Today, six of those eight employees are still with JCS, and Carlson now runs the company with his second wife, Deena. JCS currently has 65 employees servicing a broad market covering Colorado, Iowa, Kansas, Minnesota, Missouri, Montana, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Dakota, and Wisconsin. The