About Telecom Directions
LLC
Telecom Directions was founded by Henry Baird as Baird & Associates in 1987. Henry Baird operated his consulting practice in association with Applied Telecom Solutions, which he co-founded, from 1993 to 1996, before renaming his consultancy Telecom Directions in November 1996. Telecom Directions became a Washington State Limited Liability Company in 2002.
Please click here for the Telecom Directions institutional history and capacity statement.
BACKGROUNDER FOR HENRY BAIRD
Henry Baird is an independent communications systems consultant and telecom market analyst who has been active in the industry since 1983. His company, Telecom Directions LLC, delivers needs analysis, forward-looking system planning, customer satisfaction studies, and custom market assessments across all telecom industry verticals, including military and civil governments, as well as to end users in health care, education, insurance and finance. Projects have included:
· Customer satisfaction studies for I.B.M. and GTE Northwest assessing best customer service and support practices.
· Voice network development options for the Technology and Operations Section of the Information Technology Services Division, King County, Washington. Evaluation and assessment of voice network development options and recovery of Qwest overbillings for the Seattle-King County Convention and Visitors Bureau.
· Development of scenarios to optimize voice communication system and contact center configurations for regional offices of Union Labor Life Insurance Company, in Seattle, Portland, Spokane, San Francisco, Las Vegas, and Phoenix.
· Voice network switch and infrastructure evaluation and analysis of development options, Strategic Weapons Facility, U.S. Navy Submarine Base, Bangor, Washington.
He analyzes the market potential for specialty telecom applications by documenting potential demand and assessing competitive strengths and weaknesses using methodologically sound information gathering and analytical practices. His clients benefit from reduced investment risk and the ability to describe the potential of their product in specific terms.
He served as editor of Telecommunications Product Review & CPE Strategies, a national telecom trends newsletter, from 1994 to 1997, and ANI Update from 1991 to 1993, a newsletter that addressed regulatory developments and technical issues in the deployment of calling line identification services on the public telephone network. He has also served as acting director of the Communications Systems Management program at Seattle Pacific University from 1992 to 1994.
He has co-developed and presented seminars on premises cabling ownership issues in conjunction with the Building Owners and Managers Association, and he has spoken to industry groups on premises and network fiber distribution and deployment, desktop computer telephony, and trends in the development of network management systems.
In addition, he has published articles on general telecom topics in the Puget Sound Business Journal and The Office, and he has written various articles on special topics, including a discussion of emergency 911 services for Government Technology, and industry trends for Voice Processing Magazine and TeleProfessional. In 1996 he published a national demand study entitled Buying Trends in Telemanagement Software.
Prior to opening his consulting practice in 1987, he held management positions at Satellite Business Systems, a telecommunications subsidiary of I.B.M., from 1983 to 1986, and Enhanced TeleManagement, a Minneapolis-based supplier of telephone company-based centrex-type services to business in the downtown Seattle area, in 1986 and early 1987.
He holds an M.B.A. from the University of Washington in marketing and information systems (1983), as well as Masters in Expository Writing and Specialist in Education degrees from the University of Iowa (1978,1979).
He is certified as a Convergence Technology Technician by the MultiMedia Telecommunications Association, and is a member of BICSI, the Project Management Institute and the Society of Telecommunications Consultants. In 1992 and 2001, he was elected to two-year terms on the STC Board of Directors.