Telecompetitive
By CONRAD DAHLSON
He’s a Harley biker, sails his motor cruiser down the East Coast to Florida,
once studied art like a budding Botero, and eventually founded a communications
service company of such awesome efficiency that it won telecom giant Verizon’s
2003 Supplier Excellence Award. Colombian-born Carlos A. Muñoz is not only a
tech-age virtuoso but also a sterling example of how immigrant talent and
ambition continue to enrich America.
Winning the award was an impressive enough feat considering that the company Muñoz founded in 1991, CAM Communications, was one of over 300 Verizon A-rated suppliers in the running. Technology buffs—and ordinary people who just want their phones to work and don’t care how it’s done—will appreciate the magnitude of CAMCOM’s achievement of a year with zero network service outages. In other words, during all of 2002 none of the phone lines it serviced went dead, ever. For a telecom man, that’s like pitching a no-hitter in the World Series.
The honor caps a 19-year career of technical management, consulting and quality control during which Muñoz has managed over $200 million worth of voice and data installations. And counting.
How did Muñoz get from his little hometown of Tulua, Colombia, to high-tech headquarters in Fairfax, Virginia? A closer look shows a lifelong segue of learning experiences and subsequent success based on the immigrant’s perennial formula: Learn more and work harder.
Studying full time and working part time was just the way it was for Carlos, his two brothers and two sisters, from the time the Muñoz family landed up in Queens, New York, when he was 15. Working at a restaurant enabled young Carlos to attend Queen’s College, in New York. But it wasn’t until he found electronics that he truly found himself. After immersion in radio, electronics and television at New York’s Delahanty Institute, he was soon seen lugging his toolbox around Manhattan as an ITT service technician.
Next stop, the PBX pioneer Rolm Corporation, first in New York and then at its Virginia headquarters. His curriculum there explains why not much in the way of telephony remains a mystery to Muñoz. Between 1977 and 1991 he clambered up the corporate ladder from service technician to electronic technician, field technician, first-line manager, administrative assistant to the area vice president, area technical manager, and national customer service executive. And somehow he still had time to build his own Harley hog.
Muñoz’s life seemed pretty well mapped out, but chaos theory warns us that any smooth, steady, seemingly inevitable progress will one day break rhythm and scatter in the most unexpected directions. So it was in 1991 when Rolm wanted to give Muñoz yet another promotion, this time within its Texas operation.
“Only thing was, I didn’t want to go,” Muñoz says. He wasn’t about to yank the kids out of school in Fairfax County, Northern Virginia, rated as having one of the nation’s best educational systems, he explains.
Some people have all the luck, of course, especially if they’re willing and able to take advantage of it. Not very much later Rolm offered buyouts of some of its divisions. Muñoz pounced, and the piece of Rolm he came up with was re-baptized CAM Communications—and his career took off once again. As usual, he finessed the transition.
“Rolm continued to pay me a salary for a year, so the switch to owning my own business was pretty smooth,” he says. “I even came back to them as a consultant to show them how to do their installations better.” CAMCOM’s mission is to design, install and maintain telecommunications systems, and provide immediate backup and telecom system support.
But it wasn’t long before chaos theory struck again. CAMCOM did so well that it was awarded a juicy contract by the state of Maryland, only to discover that the new project required volumes of working capital that the fledgling company had no immediate way of laying its hands on.
Again Muñoz found a seemingly seamless solution. He located a buyer in GMSI, kept a respectable percentage of the firm in his own name and stayed on as CEO of a virtually independent operation.
That was in 1998, when CAMCOM had about $4 million in sales. “Now we’re billing $12 million, and this year we’ll double that with the new Verizon contract,” he says.
In fact, CAMCOM’s association with Verizon, the biggest telecom provider in the U.S., has been pure gold. During that same turning point year of 1998, CAMCOM became a certified minority vendor, having survived the rigorous three- to four-year certification process of the Verizon Diversity Sourcing Program. The Verizon program in turn is part of the Telecommunications Industry Association’s Supplier Diversity Challenge, which encourages member companies to contract at least 10 percent of its suppliers from among enterprises owned by minorities, women and disabled veterans.
“You’ve got to be ready when the big chance comes,” says Muñoz. “I was doing voice-mail installations for one of our clients, Boston Technology [now known as Converse], when Verizon acquired it.”
He must have been doing it right, because the decision-makers at the communications giant asked him to apply directly to them instead of going through the newly acquired Boston Technology subsidiary.
That meant front-door access to the immense world of Verizon. Once officially approved as a first-tier supplier, CAMCOM’s prize was exclusive Verizon ES&I (engineering, service and installation) turf in Alexandria, Virginia. Whenever network and communications problems occur in the central offices where the main switching equipment is
housed, CAMCOM troubleshoots and engineers a solution, procuring and installing all necessary equipment.
Belonging to a minority group isn’t enough to get into the program, of course—being good is what counts.
“We’re looking for suppliers who add value to what we offer customers in the way of innovation, product quality and knowledge of the market,” explains Maria Cruz, executive director of the Verizon Diversity Sourcing Program. But minority providers do get one break during the application process. “They dedicated time to mentoring us,” Muñoz recalls. “They give you jobs to see how you perform—and if you make a mistake, constructively point out how to fix it.”
Not everyone seizes the opportunity with equal acumen, however. While Verizon was evaluating CAMCOM’s suitability as a supplier, Muñoz would often visit the Diversity Sourcing Program offices. “I’d see a lot of minority people there with no idea of what they wanted to do. That’s no good—you can’t just try to figure out what might fly
and put something together afterwards. You have to be good at what you do and show what you’ve done. You need a product. In this business they don’t let just anybody walk in and give it a try.”
So what are CAMCOM’s plans for the future after coming through with flying colors to win the Verizon Supplier Excellence Award? Mergers? Buyouts? Diversification? “Just more of the same,” Muñoz demurs, “keeping CAMCOM as a top-class company, which means keeping step with the latest developments in telecom technology.” In this business, he’ll tell you, laurels aren’t anything you can rest on.
Date: October 2004