COVER STORY

In 1999, John Morgridge, the chairman of Cisco Systems, came to the annual Greater Portsmouth Chamber of Commerce dinner. Morgridge led one of the reddest of red-hot companies making the information age charge and he gave a stock, dot.com cheerleading speech.

Located at Pease International Treadeport, Aprisma has proven to be the most successful of the former Cabletron companies. Photo by Michael McCord

He talked about the cultural revolution being driven by technological advances and he pleased the local crowd, the Portsmouth Herald reported, by saying "renaming this particular area the eCoast is a reflection of that."

While doing research for this article about the wealth of hi-tech business diversity across the Seacoast region, I came across this reference and remembered that I had covered the event for a business publication. This memory triggered a wide range of other memories about people and dozens of stories I wrote about the region's dot.com boom in the 1990s.

For the most part, I had the region's hi-tech beat and it was an era of sound and wild ideas, plenty of money being thrown around -- there was no shortage of talk about stock options, IPOs and paper millionaire status -- and business utopian talk of a new era of faith-based business plans and disregard for traditional profit-and-loss accounting.

Then came the dot.com meltdown of 2000 to 2002. Companies disappeared, shrank, or split off, thousands of workers lost their jobs, especially those connected with the manufacturing sector, and the allure of the eCoast -- a region of entrepreneurial innovation and high quality of life -- appeared to be a marketing fad

But a funny thing happened to the eCoast after the dot.com bust. Out of the ashes, a lot of smart, ambitious people did not give up; stronger companies such as Bottomline Technologies, Newmarket International and PixelMEDIA retooled and others were bought and reshaped. And scores of new businesses were created from the diaspora of once heavyweight companies like Cabletron, while other cutting-edge businesses such as Hatchling Studios emerged through the sheer momentum of technological innovation and smart business plans.

The following is a personal snapshot of connections between the past and present that offers a glimpse into the current eCoast, which has become far more entrenched in the regional and state economy than ever before.

"What I am really most proud of is that over the past five to six years I've seen companies that have evolved with true business plans," said Ginny Griffith, business development manager of the Greater Portsmouth Chamber of Commerce and a member of the eCoast Technology Roundtable. "These aren't shot-in-the-dark plans from the dot.com era."

In July, Cisco Systems purchased Pease-based Meetinghouse Data, which was founded in 1988 Photo by Michael McCord

One of the companies that survived and thrived was Portsmouth-based Meetinghouse Data Communications which was founded in 1988 by Paul Goransson. Meetinghouse develops security software designed to restrict access to enterprise networks through both wired and wireless devices and last March Goransson said that one of the company's keys to success was its network of business partners. One of those partners was Cisco which, as part of an acquisition binge, purchased Meetinghouse for $43.7 million last July.

Back in 1999, Morgridge of Cisco slyly commented about Rochester-based Cabletron when he noted that the networking company, the region's largest high-tech employer, once had been a competitor. Morgridge was referring to Cabletron's corporate shake-up as the company prepared to split off its business divisions while legendary co-founders Craig Benson, who later served a term as New Hampshire governor, and Bob Levine receded into the operational background.

Cabletron left a mixed legacy for companies such as Enterasys, which struggled amid a major accounting scandal and moved to Massachusetts, while Portsmouth-based Aprisma thrived and has eventually been acquired by one larger company and then another, CA, formerly known as Computer Associates.

A few years ago, I saw the true impact of Cabletron's family tree for the Seacoast when I visited Bill Gibney, the chief executive officer and founder of eCoast Sales Solutions, which specializes in out-sourced sales functions for the high-tech industry. Gibney had served in numerous executive jobs at Cabletron -- including vice president of sales operations -- for a decade.

eCoast Sales Solutions was founded in April 2000 -- at the beginning of the dot.com bust -- when Gibney decided it was time to go his own way and run his own company. We met at the Rochester industrial park off Ten Rod Road that had been mostly occupied by Cabletron, a place where I had interviewed Craig Benson in the 1990s. Gibney had just moved his company's operations from Dover.

"To be honest, I really haven't given it much thought," Gibney said about Cabletron's legacy. "We needed space to expand."

Here are a few of the many Cabletron connections:

PixelMEDIA, a Web design company founded in 1994 by former Cabletron savants Eric Dodier and Thomas Obrey (see page 7 for more on PixelMEDIA).

NitroSecurity, whose chairman is former Cabletron executive Ken Levine, the principal of the venture capital firm Brookstone Venture Partners and whose president is Terry Christensen, another former Cabletron executive.

Pannaway Technologies, the Portsmouth-based company, which is an industry leader in consolidating voice, data, and video functions for rural telecom customers. It was founded and stocked with numerous Cabletron veterans and its main investor was Bob Levine.

Steven Singlar, the chief executive officer and founder of Exeter-based Single Digits, once told me the Cabletron legacy would have a major impact on the long-term high-tech growth of the region.

"I think the greatest impact of Cabletron wasn't that they employed 5,000 people," said Singlar, whose company specializes in wireless hot spot management software and who began his career at Cabletron. "It's going to be the thousands of jobs created by people who worked at Cabletron."

Not every eCoast tale is a successful one. Back in 1999, there was a lot of buzz by the arrival of Bowstreet in downtown Portsmouth. Bowstreet, which specialized in the then-exotic market of language for Web-based software, arrived flush with venture capital cash (it eventually raised an estimated $140 million) and eventually had around 160 employees

But Bowstreet was hurt by the dot.com downturn and in 2003 moved to Massachusetts.

But the ghosts of Bowstreet have been replaced in the same Harbourplace location by Loyalty Builders, a company that merges math and marketing to create formulas to determine customer loyalty and buying patterns.

Founded by former University of New Hampshire professor and serial entrepreneur Mark Klein, Loyalty Builders reflects the diversity of small, knowledge-based companies that have slowly developed over the past five years -- in part by drawing on the region's strengths of education, high-quality of life and a business friendly state.

"Software is on the rise," said Fred Kocher, president of the N.H. High Technology Council. "This is a heavy entrepreneurial area, a great place for the number of small software companies we are seeing develop."

One of the dynamic companies Kocher cited is Pease-based Global Relief Technologies, which uses sophisticated PDA software to help the military and humanitarian organizations around the world do tasks such as track the Avian flu.

Another one of those small software companies is LionWise, a Hampton-based firm founded in 2004 after the sale of Lilly Software, which made automated manufacturing solutions. Lilly alumnus and LionWise president Scott Filiault said his company -- the brainchild of Lilly Software founder Richard Lilly -- did its research and found a niche in the notoriously volatile restaurant industry.

"Restaurants historically have a high mortality rate," Filiault said. "Most restaurants will benefit from any product that will help them avoid pitfalls and proactively manage their business." Filiault said the company's key will be smart growth by staying lean and innovation to navigate waters of major industry competitors.

Though larger manufacturing companies such as Flextronics and Celestica have left as they pursue lower labor and production costs overseas, Kocher said that biotech giants such as Pease-based Lonza have grown and solidified their positions as vital regional economic players -- and helped stimulate complimentary measures at educational institutions such as at the New Hampshire Community Technical College, which has a thriving biotech technician training program.

Obrey at PixelMEDIA said he's seeing a burst of entrepreneurial activity in the region due to "a lot of really bright people" with solid, innovative ideas. What they are lacking is "faith and attention" from potential investors or business partners.

Ginny Griffith said during the past year there has been an increasing amount of energy at the monthly e-Brew networking events in Portsmouth.

"People are thinking again, asking questions and looking to change direction," Griffith said. "What they need is to be able to find money."

Some things never change.