Brown Babies

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Brown Babies

A few weeks ago, I had the privilege of taking part in a very special event. The company I founded in my basement with two Bell Labs colleagues, Telecom Analysis Systems (TAS), celebrated its 20^th anniversary. The venue for the celebration was a cruise around Manhattan, and 250 people were in attendance. The attendees included current and former employees as well as business associates from Europe, Japan, China and Korea. I was especially proud that evening to see young engineers we hired fresh out of college now thriving as professionals with homes and families of their own.

I left the company back in 1999, a few years after we sold it to the British company Bowthorpe plc, now known as Spirent plc. My co-founders Steve Moore and Charles Simmons now run the company – Steve is Senior Vice President of R&D and Charles is CEO. Despite the fact that many companies in the high-tech sector have imploded during the past few years, our company has continued to thrive. As the three of us stood in the midst of the celebration making our speeches, I couldn’t help but reflect on the fact that we three black guys started this company, and that we managed to create a world-class technology company where people from many backgrounds work together to create great products. In the process, the company created hundreds of high-paying jobs in Monmouth County and paid millions of dollars in federal and state taxes.

When we started TAS back in 1984, we had a vision, but our ability to realize that vision was uncertain. We didn’t have role models, and there was no track record for what we were trying to accomplish. I was born in 1954, just one year after the Brown v. Board of Education decision, and Steve and Charles were born just a few years later. Had it not been for that decision, there probably would not have been a TAS. In a very real sense, the three of us are children of the Brown decision, and we owe many of our accomplishments to its results. We were part of the first wave of blacks to attend major, formerly white engineering schools. We were part of the first wave of blacks to work in the technical staff at AT&T Bell Labs. The Brown decision drove the desegregation that opened doors of opportunity for us, and we took advantage of those opportunities. The Brown decision also spawned a climate of fairness and equal opportunity that made it possible for a company founded by three black guys to sell high-tech products to (mostly) white engineers at the country’s leading industrial companies.

There is a larger legacy to our experience as children of Brown. That legacy is the benefits that our company brought to the many employees, suppliers and customers that we have touched over the years. In this sense, it is clear that the desegregation that enabled our success benefited a wide range of people, most of whom are not black. The success of TAS is a small example of how our society has benefited by tearing down the walls of official segregation. It is also an example of how much can be achieved when people work together and focus on their common goals rather than their differences.

W. David Tarver

Los Angeles, CA

May 25, 2004