Connections Bear Fruit for LEAF Communications

SHARE THIS ARTICLE

LEAF Communications has grown into a nationwide, full-service integrator, establishing a reputation and developing relationships along the way.

When LEAF Communications began in 2013, it diversified out of necessity. Because carriers’ needs are changing all the time, sometimes daily, it can be challenging for a small company to meet those needs with trained personnel on a timely basis.

At the time, the services industry was fragmented into firms specializing in different areas, such as site acquisition, architecture and engineering (A&E), and construction services. But diversifying into multiple services meant LEAF Communications could smooth out the ebbs and flows of carrier work, says Dan Leaf, CEO and President of LEAF Communications.

“We thought, what if we owned those services in-house? It’s a harder model to build, but the foundation it provides gives us much more depth,” Leaf said.

Drafting services were added so the firm could design what it was going to build, and then it began providing site acquisition services.

“As it evolved into drafting and engineering, we could see the momentum start to take off, and we added construction services and construction management,” Leaf said. “We brought in structural and engineering, so now we are stamping in-house for the carriers.”

Today, LEAF Communications has evolved into a full-service wireless integrator, specializing in multiple areas, including distributed antenna systems (DAS), emergency responder radio communications solutions (ERRCS), small cells, site acquisition, construction management, monitoring and maintenance, and engineering.

“Now we look at ourselves as a true turn-key company that offers end-to-end solutions for all aspects of the wireless space support, whether it’s professional services and engineering or full deployments of systems indoor and outdoor,” Leaf said.

The Carrier Whisperer

With the carriers serving as the driving force of what’s to come, Leaf believes his responsibility is to tailor his company to meet those changes. Tracking the carriers’ needs on the development, design, and site acquisition side allows LEAF Communications to be ready on day one as a new technology or spectrum band starts to roll out.

“For us, we just have to be ready to take on that challenge when a deployment goes from being monthly or quarterly to a weekly occurrence,” Leaf said. “It just forces us to evolve. We have the experience; We have the knowledge within our team; and now, it’s just a matter of maintaining a good relationship with the carriers to understand their new rollouts and stay ahead of it versus chasing it.”

Leaf credits his success to the knowledge and experience he has gained from building the different evolutions of wireless over the last 20 years. The experience of building out carriers’ deployment plans has led to opportunities to assist municipal jurisdictions and companies in the enterprise space as well.

“We leverage the relationships we have with the carriers,” Leaf said, “to find creative ways to meet the needs of cities and enterprises.”

Providing emergency radio systems to jurisdictions is an important part of LEAF Communications’ business, leading to relationships with the state fire marshal officials, local fire inspectors, and local fire marshals in cities such as San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Miami. Those relationships have led to business in the enterprise space.

“If fire marshals have confidence that we will deploy a system that won’t create noise or havoc on their networks, they tend to push us to those building owners,” Leaf said. “We find that in that world, once you’re in, if you produce a quality product, you’re never removed.”

Heading East

LEAF Communications began out west with a headquarters in San Clemente, CA, and another office in Fairfield, CA. The company’s expansion has been organic. As it added divisions and won business around the country, it began to add personnel in those pockets. Propelled more by reputation than any sales pitch, the firm has been pulled to the East.

“We’ve recognized that when we built our west coast operations and touched Seattle, Washington, North California and South California, it gave us the ability to touch anywhere from Canada to Mexico within a six-hour drive,” Leaf said. “And as we started to go East into Colorado, the same was true. We had so much work in Colorado that we became a Rocky Mountain regional company and built up those teams. What the carriers need is a partner with national experience and a regional presence.”

In a sign of the expansion to the East, LEAF Communications opened an office in Houston in April, which will include 5,300-square-feet of office and warehouse space. The new location is a part of the company’s plan to grow its construction management reach in the southeast and provides proximity to oversee its East coast satellite regions, from Florida through the Carolinas.

“Our Texas business is exploding right now,” Leaf said. “Our support for the carriers has taken us to the Houston Gulf area and into northern Florida, so it just made sense for us to have an office in Houston that can support those Texas operations.”

In another move to support the increased demand on the East Coast, in mid-June LEAF acquired CelTeq-HPC, a DAS and WiFi design company, also based in Houston, whose products involve design, engineering, and implementation of municipal WiFi and wireless designs for various industry verticals.

“We believe that this is the first of many M&A moves by LEAF Communications on the road to becoming the largest and best wireless engineering and construction company in the nation,” Leaf said. “We’ve established a strong reputation in the industry with key players along the West Coast and throughout the United States, and this acquisition will continue to fuel our high-growth and continued positive reputation as we further saturate the East.”

LEAF Communications is also seeing revenue growth, which is on track to be 100 percent year over year in 2021. “It’s been a very exciting time for us, because now we are in multiple markets on behalf of the carriers, really guiding and understanding these projects and managing them from start to finish,” Leaf said. “We’ve evolved into a company that can really do it all. That’s where we are today.”

Reader Interactions

Leave a Reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.