For entrepreneur Michael Dennis, it’s all about the green. His company, the Big Green Group (BGG) in Chester, NJ is an environmentally friendly telecommunications company in a rapidly changing industry, that among other things, demands its players keep up in order to stay in the game.
?Technology is changing so quickly that a unique and exciting innovation today may become outdated and obscure tomorrow,? Dennis said in a recent interview with TNJ.com. ?It happens all the time.?
But getting ahead and staying there has become a mantra of sorts for Dennis, a longtime warhorse in IT. A former vice president in business communications systems for Avaya, a spin off of Lucent Technologies, which morphed from parent corporation AT&T, Dennis has been at the forefront of the IT boom since the beginning. He started his career in 1981, becoming one of just a smattering of African Americans to hit the corporate ranks in Lucent in 1993.
At one point, the personable and shrewd executive managed a unit of more than 13,000 employees and oversaw the installation, maintenance customer support and business management services at Lucent. He was also recognized as one of the most powerful African Americans in corporate America by Black Enterprise magazine.
After a series of cutbacks, shifts in managements, restructuring and other corporate minutiae, Dennis left Avaya and eventually started BGG in 2010. The company specializes in wireless services; broadband construction services; and various other IT support services and employs about 50 people and contracts services with several outside vendors. The company is a certified government contractor and recently became a primary supplier to AT&T through the telecoms’ much heralded supplier diversity program.? His advice for would-be entrepreneurs is simple: Do the research, learn the market, learn about your clients, network, take a chance and do it.?
