WaveRunner selects Fort Collins for new HQ

FORT COLLINS – One year after buying and spinning off a lucrative IBM Corp. division, Max Eidswick is ready to locate his company in new headquarters in Fort Collins.

Eidswick’s WaveRunner Technology Corp. will operate out of 3,200 square feet at 225 N. Lemay Ave., a newly completed office building owned by K Venture Properties, which includes Steve Kawulok, commercial broker with The Group Inc.

WaveRunner Technology is continuing the work IBM

started by improving and expanding on its Wave-Runner family of products. The Fort Collins operation is the research-and-development arm for what is in essence a programmable analog modem and ISDN terminal adapters.

The adapter, for example, allows a personal-computer user to have an ISDN line hooked up to the Internet all the time while having another hooked to a phone line. This allows the user to emulate a modem signal to appear like a fax call, thus allowing faxes to be sent and received.

The local office will be used for research and development of WaveRunner products. Sales and support continue to be operated out of Raleigh, N.C., where IBM housed WaveRunner when it was part of the Big Blue family.

“We have staffing plans for 25 by September,” Eidswick said. “We’re bringing more technology to here, which is good for the community.”

Eidswick, whose wife, Sandy, also is heavily involved in the business, said he plans to hire locally for senior and junior software engineers, programmers and other positions. The company now has approximately 11 employees.

The goal is to position WaveRunner products as ones that deliver reliable, high-speed connectivity for clients using information networks, whether remote LAN access such as SOHO, or Internet links using the ISDN analog applications.

WaveRunner has remained close to its roots. Though an IBM spinoff, Eidswick said that company remains his “primary, singular customer” and is the main sales channel. Products are sold worldwide.

Sales this year are expected to hit $5.5 million.

WaveRunner already has done two small private offerings, one for $400,000 and the other for $900,000. More offerings are anticipated.

Eidswick also may continue the pattern of purchasing IBM divisions that the company no longer wants to operate inhouse. He’s already made a bid for another IBM division in Europe.

Prior to WaveRunner, Eidswick worked as the chief technical officer for Network Express Inc., an Ann Arbor, Mich., company owned by brother Dick Eidswick. That later was acquired by Cabletron Systems Inc.