Techcon Newsletter
Vol.MMVII.1		January 2, 2007
	Where is Jerry Dixon? [Addressee], This is a very simple news letter to all my industry friends to communicate what I'm doing, and what the heck I plan to do. As a few of you may be aware, I retired from Liberty Wire & Cable at the end of 2006. After five years at Liberty, and four very favorable ownership changes, I decided it was time to move on to new endeavors. Liberty was really an extraordinary experience, particularly because the entire management team participated in building a GREAT company. I arrived at Liberty on January 2, 2002. It was a small, entrepreneurial company with a good-sized footprint in the CEDIA market, and a relatively tiny footprint in the ICIA/NSCA marketplace. My job as VP of Integration Sales was to direct sales to 50MM with an even split in commercial and residential business by the end of 2004. This was a goal set by its owner and founder, Gary Michelson, as a reasonable benchmark to attract perspective buyers of his company, which was always Gary's objective when he first opened the doors in 1991.
In September of 2004 a private equity group, River Associates LLC, purchased Liberty and concurrently I was promoted to Senior VP of Sales. River held the company for 18 months, and sold the company in mid 2006, for about double their original purchase price, to Communication Supply Corporation (CSC). CSC was at that time about a $500MM company primarily supplying cable and related products to the DataCom marketplace. In November of 2006, CSC was acquired by WESCO, a large public company that was a mid-90's Westinghouse spin off. WESCO is a company distributing electrical products to electrical contractors, similar to a company like Grainger. All of this history points to the colossal success that Liberty Wire & Cable was able to achieve, emerging from a "boutique" darling of the AV and Wire& Cable industries to become a highly desirable acquisition for companies looking to gain or establish a significant cable position in the Pro AV world. What I think is most significant is that we were able to consistently achieve a compounded 40% growth rate, year to year, even during the worst of economic times. I'm very proud to have been a part of that company and the success the entire team attained, in particular those that were on the front line of all that was accomplished, namely, our profoundly talented sales team who were ably supported by a very capable professional marketing department. On December 15th, my lovely wife Rose and I moved back to our home state of New Mexico primarily to be near our families. We certainly had a lot of fun over the last 15 years, first at GE, then Electrohome (now Christie), followed by BARCO and finally at Liberty. However, at this time, we really felt it was time both to get back to our roots, and to do something new. Not missing a beat, I am currently undertaking a couple of major tasks. First, I am serving as my own general contractor (OK, I didn't really want this task…the original GC didn't "work out"…) for a new home we are building at the base of the Sandia Mountains, near Albuquerque, in a small old Spanish village called "Placitas." We expect to be finished with the construction in early June. Second, I'm resurrecting an earlier endeavor, which was a small company named Techcon ™. Techcon was originally formed to perform technical consulting to the U.S. Department of Defense, and was responsible for developing several groundbreaking forms of counter measures to "derail" laser guided weapons. These were projects for the Office of the Test Directorate at White Sands Missile Range. Through Techcon, I plan to provide consulting services for various industry manufacturers and dealers. I am confident that I can apply my extensive knowledge, gained over the last 35 years, to help make our growing industry measurably stronger, more dynamic, and better prepared for the rapid changes that confront each one of us. Should you, or anyone in your company, be interested in engaging me in a consulting role for your business, please feel free to contact me at: jdixon@techcongp.com or call me at 505.559.0654. Please feel free to visit our new website at www.techcongp.com. Right now, it's somewhat austere, but will continue to grow over the next few weeks. Wishing you all a happy healthy and prosperous New Year! Best Regards, Jerry Dixon