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Movements, leaders, victories and the continuing fight for equality.
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Explore the people, places, events, achievements, struggles and stories that shaped our journey.
Movements, leaders, victories and the continuing fight for equality.
Innovation, patents, science, technology and world-changing contributions.
Pioneers, champions, Negro Leagues, records, activism and excellence.
Meet the people whose lives, choices and achievements shaped the journey.
Black towns, communities, institutions and places where history happened.
Moments that changed communities, movements, institutions and the nation.
In August 1908, a white mob attacked Springfield, Illinois’s Black community, destroying homes and businesses and lynching two Black men. National outrage over the violence helped spur the movement that created the NAACP the following year.
MORE →Reflects the personal views, recollections, and perspective of the author, Mike Davis.
This is a personal recollection on the Move fire on May 13, 1985
 | This section may be in need of reorganization to comply with Wikipedia's layout guidelines. (June 2023) |
| Electric Lightwave | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Type | Subsidiary |
| Industry | Telecom Service - Domestic |
| Founded | 1996 |
| Headquarters | Vancouver, Washington 45°35′56″N 122°29′08″W / 45.599°N 122.4855°W |
| Key people | Marc Willency, CEO |
| Products | Data Networking and Internet Managed and Cloud Services Voice Communications Colocation and Equipment Business Bundles |
| Revenue | $538 million (2017) |
Number of employees | 823 |
| Parent | Zayo Group Holdings |
| Website | www |
Electric Lightwave, formerly known as Integra, was a privately owned provider of fiber-based, carrier-grade networking, communications and technology solutions, headquartered in Vancouver, Washington, United States. In 2016, the company split into two divisions, Electric Lightwave and Integra, and changed its parent company name to Electric Lightwave.[1] In early 2017, Electric Lightwave was acquired by Zayo Group Holdings for $1.4 billion.[2]
Founded by Ted Berns and Dudley Slater in 1996, the company was a facilities-based provider of communication and networking services and served 35 metropolitan markets across eleven states.[3] The company expanded to serve businesses of all sizes.[4] As of 2017, the privately held company had annual revenues of $538 million,[5] with approximately 823 employees company-wide.[6]
The company was founded in 1996 through the acquisition of OGI Telecomm,[7] a shared tenant provider formed in 1984 to provide voice and data services to the Oregon Graduate Institute (then based in unincorporated Washington County) and businesses in the AmberGlen Business Park, a nearby office park. The company became Integra Telecom in 1998.[8]
By the year 2000 Integra had grown to annual revenues of $42 million, and grown to around $150 million in 2005.[9] Integra Telecom doubled in size through the acquisition of Electric Lightwave (ELI) from Citizens Communications (later renamed Frontier Communications) in 2006,[7] and in 2007 acquired Eschelon Telecom, which again doubled the size of the company.[10] ELI was a telecommunications company originally formed in 1988, by John Warta, John Rivenburgh, Earl Kamsky and Richard Furnival, formed to compete with US West and GTE in the Pacific Northwest. Portland General Electric was an initial investor of ELI; then, Citizens Utilities became the largest investor in 1990. ELI became the first company to compete locally in Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Utah, and one of the first in California and Arizona. Integra purchased ELI for $243 million in cash as well as an assumption of $4 million in debt in a deal that closed on August 1, 2006.[11] The Eschelon purchase was for $566 million in cash and $144 million in assumed debt.[10]
In 2007, Integra had 1,100 employees and annual revenues of $340 million before their purchase of Eschelon.[10] That year, they moved part of their operations into the 20-story Lloyd Center Tower in Portland's Lloyd District on the city's eastside.[12] This is near their headquarters at the 1201 Lloyd Building.[12] By 2009 the company had grown to annual revenues of more than $680 million and employed more than 550 people at their headquarters and 2,300 people across the company.[13] In 2009, the company brought in new investors to reduce its debt load by approximately $600 million.[9][14] Integra accumulated much of the debt due to its earlier acquisitions, and, according to news reports, faced the possibility of bankruptcy due to breaching covenants in its loan agreements.[9]
In 2011, the company announced the replacement of co-founder and thirteen year CEO Dudley Slater. According to news reports, under Slater, the upstart company grew into one of Portland's largest businesses and became a leader among a new class of competitive Internet companies.[15]
Later in 2011, Kevin O'Hara became the third chief executive officer of the company that year when he was named to replace Tom Casey in December.[16] O'Hara announced that Integra had marked a return to financial stability along with substantial growth for the company’s network assets Ethernet-based product portfolio and service offerings.[17] By the end of 2012, Integra had expanded its enterprise and wholesale customer base, contributing to an increasingly diversified customer and revenue mix.[17] Integra also renamed its Electric Lightwave subsidiary to Integra Wholesale to reflect its longstanding integration into Integra's business.[18] The company also announced the completed acquisition of equity interests previously held by Goldman, Sachs & Co., Integra’s largest shareholder, by investment funds affiliated with Searchlight Capital Partners.[19]
In 2013, Integra closed a new $845 million senior secured credit facilities, including a $60 million revolving credit facility (undrawn at closing), a $585 million first lien term loan due 2019 and a $200 million second lien term loan due 2020.[20] The net proceeds from the new credit facilities were used to refinance Integra’s previously outstanding term loan and bonds, and for general corporate purposes.[20] To better align with its expanded market focus, Integra re-branded in February 2013 and introduced a new company logo and tagline, "Technology You Trust. People You Know."[8] In 2014, the company moved its headquarters from Portland to neighboring Vancouver, Washington.[21][22]
In August 2016, Integra split itself into two standalone businesses, Electric Lightwave and Integra, and the corporate entity which owned them was named Electric Lightwave.[1]
Zayo's completion of the acquisition in 2017 marked the end of a period of significant change beginning in 2011, during which the company cycled through 4 different CEOs,[23] and saw its revenues decline from $680 million (2009) to $538 million, while reducing its workforce from 2,300 to 823.[13]
After serving many communities across the Western, Rocky-Mountain and Midwestern United States for over 20 years, while employing thousands of people, Zayo announced the immediate integration of the company's operations into its Fiber Solutions and SMB Allstream business units while reporting guidance for continued growth of the combined organization.[24]
Electric Lightwave owned and operated a fiber optic network consisting of a 4,000-mile long-haul fiber-optic network, 4,000 miles of metropolitan fiber and a nationwide IP/MPLS network. Additionally, the company offered data networking and high-speed Internet, managed and cloud services, voice communications, colocation and equipment and business bundles to small-to-medium businesses as well as large enterprises in 35 metropolitan markets including cities in Arizona, California, Colorado, Idaho, Minnesota, North Dakota, Oregon, Montana, Nevada, Utah and Washington.[25][26]
Source: Wikipedia. Article content is retrieved live through the MediaWiki API.
Electric Lightwave, formerly known as Integra, was a privately owned provider of fiber-based, carrier-grade networking, communications and technology solutions, headquartered in Vancouver, Washington, United States. In 2016, the company split into two divisions, Electric Lightwave and Integra, and changed its parent company name to Electric Lightwave. In early 2017, Electric Lightwave was acquired by Zayo Group Holdings for $1.4 billion. Founded by Ted Berns and Dudley Slater in 1996, the company was a facilities-based provider of communication and networking services and served 35 metropolitan markets across eleven states. The company expanded to serve businesses of all sizes. As of 2017, the privately held company had annual revenues of $538 million, with approximately 823 employees company-wide.
Leonard Tow (May 30, 1928 – August 10, 2025) was an American businessman and philanthropist. He was the chairman and CEO of Citizens Communications (now Frontier Communications) and chairman of Electric Lightwave. He also co-founded Century Communications, which was sold to Adelphia Communications Corporation for $5.2 billion in 1999 and became part of Cablevision.
In 3D computer graphics, radiosity is an application of the finite element method to solving the rendering equation for scenes with surfaces that reflect light diffusely. Unlike rendering methods that use Monte Carlo algorithms (such as path tracing), which handle all types of light paths, typical radiosity only account for paths (represented by the code "LD*E") which leave a light source and are reflected diffusely some number of times (possibly zero) before hitting the eye. Radiosity is a global illumination algorithm in the sense that the illumination arriving on a surface comes not just directly from the light sources, but also from other surfaces reflecting light. Radiosity is viewpoint independent, which increases the calculations involved, but makes them useful for all viewpoints. Radiosity methods were first developed in about 1950 in the engineering field of heat transfer. They were later refined specifically for the problem of rendering computer graphics in 1984–1985 by researchers at Cornell University and Hiroshima University. Notable commercial radiosity engines are Enlighten by Geomerics (used for games including Battlefield 3 and Need for Speed: The Run); 3ds Max; form•Z; LightWave 3D and the Electric Image Animation System.
Sumitomo Electric Industries, Ltd. (住友電気工業株式会社, Sumitomo Denki Kōgyō) is a manufacturer of electric wire and optical fiber cables. Its headquarters are in Chūō-ku, Osaka, Japan. The company's shares are listed in the first section of the Tokyo, Nagoya Stock Exchanges, and the Fukuoka Stock Exchange. In the period ending March 2021, the company reported consolidated sales of US$26.5 billion (2,918,580 million Japanese yen). The company was founded in 1897 to produce copper wire for electrical uses. Sumitomo Electric operates in five business fields: Automotive, Information & Communications, Electronics, Environment & Energy, and Industrial materials and is developing in two others: Life Sciences and Materials & Resources. It has more than 400 subsidiaries and over 280,000 employees in more than 30 countries. Sumitomo Electric has traditionally had an intensive focus on R&D to develop new products. Its technologies have been used in major projects including traffic control in Thailand, improvement of telecom networks in Nigeria, membrane technology for waste water treatment in Korea, and bridge construction in Germany. Sumitomo produces chips for 5G base stations. Sumitomo Electric's electrical wiring harness systems, which are used to send information and energy to automobiles, hold the largest market share in the world. Sumitomo Electric also continues to be the leading manufacturer of composite semiconductors (GaAs, GaN, InP), which are widely used in semiconductor lasers, LEDs, and mobile telecommunications devices. The company is one of the top three manufacturers in the world of optical fiber. Sumitomo Electric Industries is a part of the Sumitomo Group.
Before the 1921 destruction of Tulsa’s Greenwood District, Black residents had created a remarkable center of business and community life. The district included stores, professional offices, entertainment venues and homes owned by Black citizens. Understanding Greenwood means learning what was built—not only what was burned.
MORE →The Greenwood District.