Michael Schmidlen

Michael Schmidlen

Entrepreneur

On January 9, 2009, RAD Data Communications, Inc., one of Michael’s largest voice and data manufacturers, who is also one of North America’s largest data communications manufacturers, selected Advanced Datacomm Solutions, Inc. as their “2008 RAD Data Communications, Inc. North American Partner of the Year.”

In August of 2009, Advanced Datacomm Solutions, Inc. was also recognized by Inc. Magazine on their “Inc. 5,000” list of the Fastest Growing Private Companies in the USA for the second consecutive year, moving up to # 3,291 from #4,492 in 2008 and also further recognized by Colorado Biz Magazine, listed for the 3rd consecutive year on “The Top 250 Private Companies” List at # 232 (2007 listed at # 204, and in 2008 listed at #184).

These are some impressive results for a self-made entrepreneur (or as he likes to call himself a solo entrepreneur or “solopreneur”), who at age 19, was forced to leave college to go to work. After several years of jobs that merely “paid the bills”, in 1983 Michael took a sales position with General Electric. In 1984, GE was selected as one of seven national distributors for a major, new structured cabling product called “The IBM Cabling System”; this was Michael’s introduction to the technology industry and was also the foundation for his future entrepreneurial ventures.

In January of 1990, Michael (as President & Co-Founder) and a couple of his colleagues pooled their limited assets, attracted some venture funding, acquired consignment inventory, and boldly predicted a million dollars in sales projection for their first year of their new business. In fact, they easily exceeded that sales objective (over 2.5 times!); a statistic that 95% of small, independent businesses never achieve. They grew the company to almost $7.0 million in sales in their first 3 years.

In 1993, Michael became the Founder and Principal Executive Officer of Advanced Datacomm Solutions, Inc. (A.D.S.), expanding his reach into the global marketplace and also expanding his product offering from only physical layer products (i.e. wire & cable) to include active networking hardware products and services as well.

Nearly two decades and over $25 Million dollars in sales later, Advanced Datacomm Solutions, Inc. still proudly serves many of its original clients and is still a 100% referral-driven, international value-added reseller (VAR) of voice & data communications products and services to a widely diverse customer base, both domestic (United States) and abroad. Michael has served as a project manager for the development of a worldwide outsource/call center customer in 2003 through present day. This network today spans many countries from North, Central, South America & the Caribbean to the South Pacific, Pacific Rim and Indian Continent. A.D.S. currently does business in over 19 countries on 5 continents.

Michael’s philosophy can be summed up by the following: “I do not believe in recessionary thinking and instead am driven by hard work, the ability to adapt, the importance of continuously learning and improving myself, and knowing how to capitalize on the opportunities that exist in emerging trends and technologies.”

We have achieved this ongoing success by focusing on our business; our customer relationships, our vendor relationships and on the issues that we can control.

Michael currently lives in Castle Pines North with his wife Valerie, of over 20 years and two teenage daughters.

NEAR FUTURE GOAL: Michael is an aspiring author of his first book, working titled “Memoirs of an Underwear Entrepreneur”, (a book currently in progress), which shares his many business experiences and is designed to help other small business owners and start-ups beat the overwhelming statistics to create a successful small business model.