SPRINGBOARD TECHNOLOGY CORPORATION

WHEN YOU REFUSE TO BE DEFINED BY YOUR CIRCUMSTANCES, THE SKY IS THE LIMIT

By Marjorie J. Hurst

Without exception, when you take the time to study successful businesses and/or organizations, you come across extraordinary stories about the people at the top. Such is the case with SpringBoard Technology Corporation (“SpringBoard”) and its founder, chairman and CEO, Anthony F. Dolphin.

SpringBoard is located in Springfield, Massachusetts at Springfield Technical Community College’s Technology Park. It occupies 130,000 square feet of space that used to house Digital Equipment Corporation. But a little over ten years ago, Tony Dolphin, who was then Digital-Springfield’s site Plant Manager, had a vision of starting a business of his own. The time was right. Digital was downsizing and closing facilities and Tony was able to sell his vision and his proposal for a leveraged buy-out of one of Digital’s operations.

So, in June 1993, with one (1) customer and one (1) service offering, and many hours of hard work from a handful of talented individuals, Tony Dolphin was able to “springboard” SpringBoard Technology Corporation with its focus on storage technology: disc drives, tape drives and associated electronics. Sounds scary…perhaps. Sounds risky….surely. But impossible….absolutely not! Not if you know anything about Tony Dolphin’s background.

Tony is the middle of three children raised by his hard-working mother (a situation we used to praise before we coined the term “single parent” and turned it into a negative) who cleaned other people’s houses to earn a living to support her children. He grew up in Providence, Rhode Island, living in 3-tenement houses sometimes with no heat or hot water. He worked all day and then went to undergraduate school evenings “for what seemed like forever,” finally obtaining a degree in engineering from Roger Williams College in Rhode Island he continue his education through numerous executive management programs.

Tony also watched his older sister, who did not finish high school, get married and raise a family, then go back to school to get her GED, and then continue on to get an associate degree, and finally a college degree-- all while struggling with MS (multiple sclerosis).

So, this is a man who knows the difference between what is impossible and what is simply hard work! And even though he is soft spoken and polite when he talks to you, don’t think you are going to get away with giving him excuses about what cannot be done. He knows first hand that if you want to be successful, you have to make things happen and, ultimately, you’re responsible for the results.

An active participant in the Springfield community, Tony readily shares his background with young people and tries to convey to them the message that “the situation that they are in so many of us have been in.” Although he recognizes that the challenges of today may be much more difficult, “they are not impossible if, somehow, you are able to see beyond the trees.”

After all, look where SpringBoard has come in eleven years: From a handful of employees to a diversified work force of over 100, 60% of who live within a mile and a half of the facility; from one customer and one service offering to a portfolio of Fortune 500 companies and services which include value-added contract manufacturing, technology transfers, end-of-life manufacturing, computer-based integration services, depot repair, inventory and logistics management and logistic solutions, with the possibility in the very near future of wide-spread global expansion.

Tony is understandably very proud of SpringBoard’s many accomplishments and the numerous awards that the company has received. He attributes much of their success to a dedicated management team and great employees. He also believes in giving back to the community and SpringBoard employees are very involved with numerous non-profit organizations and Tony himself sits on a number of local, state and federal boards.

Tony is happily married and the proud father of three children, two girls and a boy. Both his wife and oldest daughter work in the company. His wife is a program manager and his daughter works in customer service and is in a management-training program. And that, too, tells you a lot about the man! n