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When Two Pioneers
Partnered in Oasis -
Business Continuity Emerged
 [ Download
PDF version of this story as it appeared in January 2009
issue of The Valley Patriot.]
Adobe® PDF File Format
Background
The future of Haverhill's downtown
is at a critical juncture. Hundreds of new residential units,
mostly apartments, are complementing longstanding stylish restaurants
and shops in the downtown. Yet, there are still missing pieces
to the puzzle that must be solved before critical mass can be
reached in the downtown.
A market analysis and strategic
action plan for downtown Haverhill was completed by Gruen Gruen
+ Associates, urban economists and market strategists from Chicago,
in June 2007 for the City of Haverhill. It cited these two primary
disadvantages amongst others currently in downtown Haverhill:
"(downtown) currently lacks a concentration of either major
office space users or an established base of market rate residential
units." The report is available at http://www.ci.haverhill.ma.us/departments/econ/gruen_final_report.pdf
.
It is obvious that you need both
market rate residential units and major office space users, as
well as a variety of other recommendations offered in the Gruen
Report for Haverhill's downtown to succeed in a sustainable manner.
For this article, we focus on creating jobs with pizzazz for
knowledge workers and the trades in the Downtown.
Two downtown pioneers are not
waiting for help; they are pressing forward to help draw the
next generation of jobs as both a feeder to Haverhill's industrial
parks and an incentive to encourage the future work force to
live in downtown Haverhill.
Bill Nofsker's Building
William "Bill" Nofsker
of Kifor Development Co., who developed and manages the Burgess-Lang
Professional Center at 143-145 Essex Street (http://kifordevelopment.com/),
agrees that jobs are a key ingredient for the downtown to realize
its potential, "The Burgess-Lang Professional Center will
be an oasis among the residential developments in the downtown
because people need a place to work."
Mr. Nofsker's versatile, customizable
and "best value per square foot space in the Merrimack Valley"
is now being marketed as professional office and data center
space for the service and emerging technology industries, in
addition to light manufacturing, distribution and warehousing.
An example of a hot emerging technology industry is renewable
energy, which offers the hope of creating jobs for both knowledge
workers and the trades. Both our newly elected President and
our Governor are pushing renewable energy. Lawrence and other
surrounding cities has been successful in this market
Community involvement and business
development in the downtown have been Mr. Nofsker's cornerstones
since he arrived in Haverhill more than two decades ago.
Dave Spaulding's Business
Enter Dave Spaulding, President
of USAi.net (http://www.usai.net/),
an outgrowth of MVA.NET, which he started in the late 1990s as
a Mom and Pop dial-up Internet Service Provider (ISP) based on
Washington Street in downtown Haverhill. During the .com bubble,
then bust, the industry analysts predicted that the Mom and Pop
ISPs would get swallowed up by the big regional and global ISPs.
Not so in Mr. Spaulding's plan.
In fact, he has transformed his
business into a regional wireless Internet services provider,
specializing in high availability for customers that need to
be "always-on." Key regional customers include the
Boston Public Library network, Bay State College, Gordon College
and Independence Investments. USAi.net provides primary and backup
Internet services for the entire Boston Public Library network,
which entails 28 buildings.
Mr. Spaulding has also been synonymous
with community commitment and business development in the downtown.
When he first started his business, the downtown did not have
an Internet infrastructure, only an outdated telephone infrastructure.
He teamed with the Telephone company to install the first broadband
infrastructure in the downtown. He has also been an active participant
in the community, again teaming with the Telephone company in
the 1990s to provide free computers and free internet access
for inner city youth in Haverhill.
When Dave Met Bill - Business
Continuity Emerged
Mr. Spaulding's success led to
a need for a larger facility. He said, "We recently moved
our nine employees from 2000 square feet of office and data center
space on Washington Street to 6000 square feet of space in Mr.
Nofsker's Burgess-Lang Professional Center. USAi.net broadcasts
from more than 30 locations across Boston. Our new facility includes
an office and a data center, but it also includes space dedicated
to our next business endeavor, which is business continuity or
disaster recovery."
USAi.net is now ready to provide
business continuity to companies of all sizes. Since 9/11, business
continuity has become a national priority. Companies need to
quickly recover and restore critical business functions that
have been interrupted after a disaster or extended disruption.
This includes virtual restoration of a company's Information
Technology capability and a Hot Standby office for workers at
a remote location.
This capability will be provided
in the Burgess-Lang Professional Center in Haverhill and another
facility in Westminster, MA. If there is a disaster at a company
in Boston, Route 128, or anywhere in the region, their customer's
critical business functions will switchover to USAi.net's facility
and the workforce will re-locate there. Mr. Spaulding is already
proposing his new services to a consortium of Colleges and Universities.
According to Bill Nofsker, "This
is a business strategy whose time has come." In fact, Mr.
Nofsker likes the idea so much he has agreed to partner with
Mr. Spaulding on future endeavors, if USAi.net succeeds in the
disaster recovery market. It seems that the two pioneers are
at it again!
Top right photo: USAi.net's One Boston Place hub located
at the north end of the Boston Financial District.
Photo on the left: USAi.net's link from Boston Place to
Gordon College. This link provides the school with 150mb of Internet
connectivity.
Photo on the bottom: Gordon campus - to the left of Chase
Hall just above the tree line is USAi.net's receiver aimed back
at Boston.
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