Fullerton was started by Matt Bellagamba in 1998 at a desk he rented in the office of his father’s furniture store on Fullerton Avenue in Chicago. Previously, Bellagamba had worked briefly for Aerial Communications (now T-Mobile) in Columbus, OH. With only his one desk and one computer he had been awarded two architectural and engineering (A&E) projects by Sprint. From there, he started hiring engineers and drafters and began growing Fullerton Engineering Consultants.
Fullerton has come a long way since its humble beginnings as a boutique A&E design firm. Today, twenty-five years later, Fullerton is a leading turnkey provider, offering diverse scopes of services across multiple industry verticals. Fullerton’s in-house services team is experts in numerous disciplines such as site acquisition, structural engineering, macro cell site design, fiber network and small cell design, distributed antenna systems (DAS) design, and construction services. Fullerton remains committed to its core competency A&E, holding engineering licenses in all fifty states and in Puerto Rico.
“The evolution of Fullerton went from strictly design and engineering on macro cell towers to a complete suite of services,” Kelly Lazuka, CEO, told Inside Towers. “We now work directly with the carriers, tower companies, fiber providers, venue owners, and OEMs.” The company has around 115 employees. About 80 employees work out of Fullerton’s corporate offices in Schaumburg, IL, and the remaining 35 or so, are located in markets across the country.
To reflect its evolution of solutions, Fullerton Engineering Consultants dropped the engineering moniker, rebranding to simply, Fullerton. It simultaneously introduced a new logo and launched a new website. The refreshed look, according to Lazuka, is representative of Fullerton’s progression into a turnkey provider of connectivity solutions. “We are still engineering experts, but we do so much more than that. The breadth of our services is far broader now and it’s time to showcase that.” But growth doesn’t override attention to detail. “Even with expansion, we still maintain a tailored approach,” says Lazuka.
Fullerton’s offerings are separated into four groups. The newest is the Construction Services division, which includes in-house crews that handle small cell and macro rooftop installations, DAS and AAV (Alternative Access Vendor) or fiber installs, site decommissioning, and generator work – to name a few.
“A couple of years ago, we made the commitment to build a construction organization dedicated to quality, safety and customer satisfaction,” said Lazuka. The Construction Division continues to be very busy, providing fiber installations, maintenance services and construction management for multiple customers across multiple states.
The Fiber and Small Cell division provides project management and solutions around both ISP and OSP Design and engineering, including aerial and underground fiber, pole loading analysis, and pole service. Additionally, the division handles small cell node design and permitting services.
“One of our more notable projects in the Fiber and Small Cell Division was an award we received to do site selection, permitting, engineering and design services for a major carrier deploying a small cell network in the state of Washington. The deployment marked the carrier’s first small cell network to be put on air, and we were very fortunate to be able to support them,” Lazuka said.
Small cell, Washington state
The Wireless Division provides front end services primarily focusing on macro tower assets. Fullerton engages directly with the big carriers, tower owners, and OEMs on projects that require site acquisition, zoning and permitting, design and engineering, and utility coordination. The Wireless Division also provides project management and asset management solutions which have added “tremendous value” for their partners from an efficiency and cost-savings perspective. The Wireless Division hosts a very experienced staff, ready to accept both large-scale national programmatic work or even smaller projects that require more specialized knowledge and local expertise.
The Wireless Division has been working on a large zoning and permitting program for one of the industry’s leading tower companies. In the past 12 months, it has delivered 1,500 permits for this customer.
The DAS Design Division handles engineering for distributed antenna systems in airports, hospitals, government facilities, sports venues, and entertainment venues, including several MGM properties. Those services include site design, head-end design, RF design, permitting, project and construction management.
The DAS Design Division is close to completing the internal DAS design for Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport. “Because of our success with the indoor DAS at the Phoenix airport, they have awarded us the engineering and design work for their outdoor DAS system, as well. We’re just getting ready to kick that off,” Lazuka said.
Phoenix Sky Harbor Airport
Lazuka was promoted to CEO a year ago and one of her imperatives was to support each of the four divisions with a best-in-class project management organization (PMO). “What the PMO does is provide consistent project management governance and training across all divisions, fully integrated business systems, vendor management, and comprehensive reporting and data analytics,” she said.
As it has evolved, Fullerton always maintained a very clear focus on its core purpose – providing wireless solutions that, empower individuals, businesses and communities to thrive in an interconnected world by upholding the highest standard of customer service, expertise, quality and integrity, according to Lazuka.
What has changed over time is the scope of work that Fullerton can take on. Adding small cell and fiber engineering and deployment along with construction maintenance fills in the gap when the carriers reduce their macro capex. Providing turnkey services has opened up new opportunities for Fullerton especially during the ups and downs we see in the industry around carrier spend.
“We used to be this rather small highly-specialized company, but thanks to our extraordinary delivery team and diligent sales staff, we are growing. And now, we actually can play with the big companies because not only can we truly say that we are a turnkey provider, but we also have the subject matter experts in house within Fullerton’s teams that flat-out know how to deliver,” Lazuka said. “We can take a site through its full lifecycle, from design, all the way to on-air, and reduce the project management burden for our customers.”
For more information, please call Fullerton at (847) 908-8400 or email [email protected].
By J. Sharpe Smith, Inside Towers Technology Editor
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