Zayo and Envysion employees–I encourage you to attend! I’ll be there. The event is tonight (Monday) at 6:15pm in Atlas Room 100 at the University of Colorado. For more information visit the Silicon Flatirons website.
Silicon Flatirons is a University of Colorado organization that promotes entrepreneurs, particularly in the fields of telecom and software. I have personally gotten involved with the organization. We see the CU as a major resource in our own backyard, and we want to encourage the development of the entrepreneurship.
Silicon Flatirons sponsors Entrepreneurs Unplugged. It is a forum that features successful entrepreneurs who have an informal discussion with students and business people from the greater Boulder area. Last year, guests included Sam Zell (which I attended and enjoyed immensely) and me (which I attended and enjoyed even more than the Sam Zell event).
Tonight Steve Halstedt is the feature guest. Many Zayo and Envysion employees might not realize that Steve is involved with Zayo Group. Steve is the co-Founder of Centennial Ventures, one of Zayo’s private equity investors. Steve recently took Centennial’s lead role in overseeing Zayo, as Rand Lewis—the original lead—became involved in other ventures. Steve is an active participant in Zayo’s board meetings.
Steve knows telecommunications and Internet infrastructure. Steve was chairman of Verio, Inc., a roll-up of Internet Service Providers (“ISPs”) in the 1990s. Verio became the largest web hosting company in the world. In one of the most remarkable exits of the telecom boom era, Verio was sold to NTT at a $5.5B valuation and the form of currency was cash.
Centennial was an investor in Brooks Fiber Properties, one of the early fiber-based competitors to the Baby Bells. Brooks was similar to MFS Communications, my alma mater, and like MFS was sold to Worldcom in a healthy exit.
One other example that is particularly relevant to Zayo is Centennial’s investment in Crowne Castle. Crowne is heavily involved in the ownership and operation of cell towers.
Steve was also chairman of OneComm, Inc., which was founded in 1989 by Centennial Ventures to become a leading provider of specialized mobile radio (SMR) services in the Rocky Mountain region and the Midwest. Centennial Ventures provided both seed and start-up funding and interim management. OneComm successfully completed its IPO in 1993, and merged with Nextel Communications, Inc. in 1995 at a $750 million valuation.
Before Centennial Ventures Steve was the Executive Vice President and Director of Daniels & Associates, Inc., a private communications service company involved in cable television system operations. Prior his time at Daniels & Associates, he served as a platoon leader and battalion operations officer in a U.S. Army combat engineer battalion in Vietnam. He taught computer programming at both the U.S. Army Engineer School and at Dartmouth College.
Steve received the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year Award in 1999 in the category of Supporter of Entrepreneurship, which recognizes a standard of entrepreneurial excellence. He is also the founding President of the Venture Capital Association of Colorado and has previously served on the board of the National Venture Capital Association.
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