Local Tech Wire
CARY, N.C. – Former Cary Mayor Glen Lang receives plenty of attention in the latest list of the nation’s fastest growing private companies.
Not only is his company – , which builds fiber-optic networks for lease to telephone and cable companies – ranked No. 268 in the top 500, Lang also is among entrepreneurs focused for feature attention.
In an interview, Lang talks about how politics prepared him to be a successful entrepreneur.
Lang says he pitched the idea for Connexion while still mayor of Cary to billionaire Jim Goodnight, who runs SAS. SAS is the world’s largest privately held software firm, and Goodnight is a Cary resident.
“[Goodnight] liked my idea,” Lang said. “He said I worked hard as mayor and that anyone with my persistence would be successful. He invested a couple million dollars.”
According to Lang, his job as mayor “taught me about the utilities business. With a new development, the city grants rights of way, which allow cable and telephone companies to lay new lines. We go directly to the landowner and get an easement, which lets us install our fiber networks on the property first.”
Connexion cracked the Inc. 500 based on 2009 revenues of $18.2 million that capped three-year revenue growth of 1,161 percent, according to the magazine.
The company has not had complete success. In 2008 during a downturn, some 100 people were laid off, including between 30-40 in Cary.
For the full interview,
( for other Triangle, N.C. and Georgia firms on the list.)
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