MAYBVM

120 121 connectivity.Through focusing on different vertical markets,wewere able to growvery successfully. And each year,it seems like there’s a newer,better, bigger,potential vertical market that we get in- volved in.Some of that is becausewe have funda- mental technology in data networking–we have our own proprietaryprotocol,our own proprietary encryption,our own proprietarynetworking stack, and becausewe’ve got that level of expertise,we’re able to customize our solutions for manycustom- ers in different markets.” For example,one of AvaLAN’s customers is Daktronics,the largest manufacturer of digital signage.“Daktronics uses our products for connect- ing their digital signs–everything frombillboards that you see out on the highway to the signs you see in front of pharmacies,schools,churches,and fast-food restaurants,”Nelson notes.Another major client is Schweitzer Engineering Laboratories,the largest manufacturer of digital cutoff switches for the electrical utility industry.“We’ve been doing last-mile connections to transformer stations,as well as connections in and around transformer stations,”he adds. “Our newest market is in retail petroleum,” Nelson continues,“in particular,doing industrial wireless connections for fuel dispensers to enable secure credit card transactions.That market has a federal mandate to have support for EMV (Europay, Mastercard andVisa) byOctober 2020,andwe’re finding the bulkof our sales and revenue coming from that market at this point in time.EMVup- grades of the retail fuel market is a largemarket opportunityestimated to be around $6.4 billion. About $400million of that market is in commu- nications andAvaLAN is working day in and day out to become the de facto standard for the data AVALANWIRELESS SYSTEMS We’ve made the Inc. 5000 list two years in a row as a Fastest Growing Company, and we think that we’ve really just begun to scratch the surface of our growth potential. MATT NELSON COMPANY PRESIDENT connections to those fuel dispensers.So,five years fromnow,I’d hope youwould see that every time that you do a transaction at a pump,it’s going across anAvaLANnetwork connection.” Nelson characterizes his companyas being “small but mighty.”It has onlya fewemployees and it differentiates itself in the type of technology it offers its clients.“It’s notWi-Fi,and it’s not cellular,” he explains.“It’s a technology that’s designed for device to device connectivityas opposed to the waya laptop or cell phone connects.There are layers of securityand reliability that are required for our industrial customers that youwouldn’t see in consumer type products. Being small and responsive to customers givesAvaLAN a number of