Dave Hill founded Hill Associates in 1981 to provide telecommunications training to his former employer, Bell Labs, while living in his home state of Vermont. By 1982, Hill Associates was in need of permanent quarters, so the company moved from Dave Hill's garage to the top floor of a bank in South Hero, Vermont. This was quickly followed by a move to a refurbished woolen mill in Winooski, Vermont, where the company remained until 1992. We then moved down the road to our present location in Colchester, nestled between Lake Champlain and the Green Mountains of Vermont.

In 1982 and 1983 (before divestiture), AT&T was Hill Associates' primary customer, but the size of this customer made it possible for Hill Associates to expand outside the Labs and provide training for other AT&T organizations. During this period, Hill Associates grew in revenue and force, adding the first Members of Technical Staff (as our instructors are known).

Following the divestiture of AT&T in 1984, the number of potential customers for Hill Associates' services expanded dramatically, as did the company itself. First at Michigan Bell, and ultimately throughout Ameritech, the demand for high quality data communications training grew, and Hill Associates began to be recognized as the company for such products and services.

A successful training program at New Jersey Bell qualified Hill Associates to be considered by Bell Atlantic for their "Top Gun" project. As the name suggests, this was Bell Atlantic's determined effort to turn their technical sales force into the best in the business. The curriculum was to be extremely demanding, and the intensity of the program quite different from anything found previously in the telecommunications training arena. Hill Associates earned the business and created a state-of-the-art curriculum. Between 1986 and 1994, more than 600 people went through the Top Gun program.

Top Gun was an unqualified success. All of the other Regional Bell Operating Companies (RBOC) moved to emulate Top Gun and turned to Hill Associates to develop the programs in partnership with them. Over the next few years we developed and delivered the Applied Data Network Institute at Ameritech (now AT&T), DataQuest at Southwestern Bell (now AT&T), Alpha IV at NYNEX (now Verizon), the Data Communications Institute at Pacific Bell (now AT&T), Data Solutions at U S WEST (now Qwest), and DataLeap (as well as DataLeap II) at BellSouth. Like Top Gun, they are all intensive, comprehensive curricula with extensive testing and a requirement for successful completion of one or more oral exams. They have been valuable to our customers and have made us the industry's leading provider of curriculum-based education. Many of these programs, or their derivatives, are in use today.

In 1990, Hill Associates opened an office in Denver and relocated part of our Vermont staff to this location. In the following years, we added remote instructors in Atlanta and outside Dallas, and have contracting instructors in various other locations around the country. From these locations we are positioned to efficiently provide training to customers located throughout North America. By the mid 1990s we were also doing business in Australia (Telstra), the Pacific Rim (Anixter), and various locations in Europe (international divisions of many of our domestic customers).

In 1992, Hill Associates expanded its training programs to include hands-on workshops. At the request of US West (now Qwest), we built a student laboratory in Lakewood, Colorado and rolled out the Hill Associates Workshop Series. The program was so successful that we created "suitcase" versions of the entire learning laboratory and began to expand the series. By the late 1990s we had built private workshops for several clients, including Sprint, BellSouth, and Telstra (Australia) and had delivered programs using our suitcased laboratory to many other customers, including Global Crossing, Verizon, AT&T, and Level3.

By 1993 we recognized the need to expand beyond traditional classroom training. In our first foray into technology-based delivery we formed Dunloe International, a joint venture with CBT Systems (now SmartForce). CommQuest was our flagship product, providing a comprehensive introduction to the telecommunications industry and technologies. While our affiliation with Dunloe International is now history, our commitment to developing new ways to deliver content remains.

By 1997 the concept of online learning was beginning to emerge, and Hill Associates began to explore methods for incorporating this new training vehicle into delivery capabilities. Appropriately enough, our first online course examined the promise of e-business. In 1998, Hill Associates established a working relationship with Champlain College of Vermont and delivered collegiate-level web-based learning courses, combining their infrastructure with our instructional staff. This series of courses became our Flex E-Learn product line.

While the majority of business remained classroom-based, Hill Associates saw potential in introducing different learning approaches to our curriculum offerings. In 1998, we created our first blended offering, combining classroom and online learning. Our philosophy has always been to use the appropriate delivery methodology based on the content and the audience. In the classroom, we optimize the instructor's experience and expertise. Online, we provide participants the opportunity to research customer requirements and perform competitive analysis, activities requiring more time than the classroom afforded. Our content is tailored to meet the needs of executive, sales, and technical audiences.

Another product to emerge in 1998 was our ExperTech series on CD-ROM. Featuring a combination of speaker presentations (digital video and audio), slides, transcripts, and a powerful search capability, the series provides learners with just-in-time access to telecommunications topics. The content is "chunked" into manageable learning units. The library of materials can be used as stand-alone, self-paced instruction, or augmented as part of an instructor-facilitated online course.

From its inception, Hill Associates was a privately held company. During the late 1990s, the owners of the company, together with the employees, began to explore different ownership options. Preferring a degree of control consistent with private ownership, the decision was made to form an Employee Stock Ownership Program (ESOP). In June of 1999, the sale of the company to the ESOP was completed and Hill Associates became 100 percent employee owned.

2001 was a year of major changes at Hill Associates. The rapid contraction of the telecommunications sector that began in early 2001 resulted in a significant reduction in training. To ensure the viability of the company for the future, Hill Associates responded to the new climate with two major initiatives. First, the company restructured internally and contracted its staff to reflect the current state of the industry. Second, we expanded our e-learning capabilities with the introduction of a new line of virtual classroom courses called Live E-Learn, open to both private and public audiences. Our efforts proved successful. Where many telecommunications companies failed or showed significant losses in 2001, Hill Associates showed a modest profit for the year.

In 2002, Hill Associates recognized that its expertise extends beyond training and encompasses marketing services. Over the years our clients have called upon us to provide our industry insight and expertise at their customer events and have more recently asked us to develop and present Webinars. We have formalized this program and now offer Webinar design and delivery services in the areas of telephony, information security, and data communications.

Today the senior management team consists of Paul Whalen, President and Chief Executive Officer and Dave Train, Chief Technical Officer. We now have over 35 Members of Technical Staff in both full-time staff and contractor roles. There are also 20 back office associates dedicated to providing the highest quality customer service. Whether staff or contractor, all Hill Associates people remain dedicated to the core values of the company:

Fun Integrity Respect Excellence