Developing Leaders

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Travelers Telecom

Business: Wireless communication services

Location: Encino

Revenue Growth: 430 %

Brothers Philip and Stephen Forte have built a business based on the fact that plenty of people never, ever, want to be separated from their telephones.

The Forte’s firm, Travelers Telecom, specializes in providing wireless communication and Internet services to the hospitality industry. Thanks to Travelers Telecom, hotel guests can get high-speed Internet access and access the World Wide Web on hotel TVs. They can also be certain that when their hotel room phone rings, so will their cell phones.

“We really want to walk into a hotel and take care of things, soup to nuts,” said Stephen Forte, 31, the company’s president and operations manager. “If they have a problem at midnight with the technology, we help out.”

The brothers’ tireless approach to customer service appears to be working. In 1997, Travelers Telecom posted $5.3 million in revenues, a 430 percent jump from the $1 million generated in 1995.

Their offerings weren’t always so sophisticated. When the pair started five years ago, they were simply renting cell phones to hotels, rental car companies, Hollywood location shoots, even the U.S. military. But the brothers, both USC alumni, took their business to the next level. In 1994, they created a computer program and database that helps cell phone users get the best coverage and clearest signal, whether they are calling Brazil or Boston. The service proved especially popular with those in entertainment, where cell phones are standard equipment.

“If Jim Carrey signs a movie contract and wants a Suburban, a house on the beach and two phones, we’re there,” Stephen Forte said.

This summer, Travelers Telecom launched a new product, dubbed Smartsuite, which outfits hotels with sophisticated communication technologies for the convenience of their guests. Forte said the company has grown from about a dozen hotel contracts to more than 200 nationwide. The company also has opened offices in New York and Miami to better service clients on the East Coast.

Locally, Smartsuite is offered at the Four Seasons Hotel in Los Angeles, the Hotel Bel-Air, the Peninsula Beverly Hills and the Century Plaza Hotel.

“The hotels are very excited about it, because they can still earn revenue from a guest, even when he’s off the property,” said Philip Forte, 34.

Although the Fortes admit that there are comparable products out there, they feel they have an edge, because they also provide round-the-clock customer service.

“They’re very responsive and keen on new technologies and moving ahead with new advancements and products,” said Kurt Englund, the rooms division manager at the 285-room Four Seasons Hotel.

— Nola L. Sarkisian

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