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DSI-ITI gets
Hall of Fame nod
Editor's note: This is the first in a series
of five stories on each of the businesses being inducted into the Blair
County Chamber of Commerce Business Hall of Fame.
A company founded as a hobby in Blair County in 1984 has grown into
the leading provider of software solutions to the corrections industry.
The company known today as DSI-ITI LLC of 5000 Sixth Ave. will be one
of five businesses inducted into the Blair County Chamber of Commerce
Business Hall of Fame Oct. 18 at the Blair County Convention Center.
The growth of the company has been impressive, said Hall of Fame Committee
Chairwoman Claudia Montero Pequignot of Allegheny Ridge Corp.
"From borrowed space and two clients to a 64,000-square-foot facility,
over 450 clients, and multi-millions in sales, DSI-ITI's [Digital Solutions
Inc./Inmate Telephone Inc.] continued growth in product line, workforce
and market share has made it a force to reckon with in the national
corrections industry," Pequignot said.
"When I look at the other people being inducted, I can't believe we
are held in the same regard as the Boyers [Candy] and U.S. Foodservice;
they are all great companies," company President Anthony R. Bambocci
said. "I was completely caught off guard; I didn't think we had a shot
at it."
Bambocci, Jim Faith and David Perove founded the business which started
as DSI.
"We started this as a hobby to repair computers via mail order. Then
we started importing computer parts for home hobbyists to build their
own computers. Then we started selling complete computer systems," Bambocci
said. "After that, we got into utility billing software. We made it,
sold it and marketed it all over Pennsylvania."
In the late 1980s while playing racquetball at the former Back Wall
racquetball club, Bambocci met Ted Alleman, a Penn State sociology professor
who was writing a book about an inmate named Buddy Martin.
Alleman planned to take one of his classes to the State Correctional
Institution at Huntingdon to interview Martin and asked Bambocci to
come along.
"Every time he wanted information about an inmate, they brought out
papers. I said someone should automate that," Bambocci recalled.
Alleman also spent some time at Blair County Prison talking to then-Warden
Gary Sparks and Deputy Don Gildea.
"Don, Gary and Ted designed what a system should look like and DSI
wrote the software code; we designed a product from those specs. This
system tracked all information about the inmates from the minute they
came into the jail until they left," Bambocci said. "The first installation
was at the Blair County Prison."
The business then started to grow.
"In 1992 when we made the decision to focus on the corrections industry,
that is when the business started to take off," Bambocci said.
ITI, which provided telephone service and equipment to correction facilities
that enabled inmates to make telephone calls, was started in 1993 and
the company was branded as DSI-ITI.
A major change occurred in June when DSI-ITI was sold to Global
Tel Link, a competitor which provided telecommunication services
to inmates.
Today, the local company is a wholly owned subsidiary of Global Tel
Link and about 100 people work at the Commerce Park building which also
houses WTAJ-TV.
"There is no more ITI. The people who worked here for ITI report to
GTL corporate offices," Bambocci said. "They are in this building but
do not report to me."
Today the company has about 300 customers in 40 states and also makes
software for the prison system in Jamaica. One in every five offenders
in the United States is managed with a DSI-ITI LLC solution.
Primary products include the Offender Management System that tracks
the inmates and manages inmate information and the Case Management System
which manages information about people on probation and parole.
Another product is called Offender
Connect, and one is located in the Blair County Prison.
"We have kiosks where inmates' friends and families can give money
to their loved ones who are incarcerated. It is like an ATM in reverse,"
Bambocci said. "You put in the money to go to the inmates' accounts."
Bambocci said the sale to GTL led to a reduction in jobs but he remains
optimistic the company will again begin to grow.
"We lost about 15 percent of our staff. The sale led to the loss of
jobs because of duplication of services," Bambocci said. "We will start
to grow again. I see more jobs being created here. We will need more
trainers, implementers and software engineers. It will probably take
a year, but it will happen."
This article was originally
published in the Altoona
Mirror September 19, 2010. Author: Walt
Frank
For more company news and information visit http://www.dsiiti.comNews_and_Events.shtml
The DSI / ITI corporate web site can be found at http://www.dsiiti.com
Contact:
Thomas Brence, Director of Marketing
Digital Solutions
/ Inmate Telephone, Inc.
ph. 888.222.3081
fx.
814.949.3307
www.dsiiti.com
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