Brainstorm Internet Inc., Durango’s largest locally based independent Internet service provider, has been sold to Forethought.net of Denver.
Brainstorm will continue to operate under its existing name, and customers won’t immediately be affected, said Phil Bryson, the company’s former owner and CEO.
“Brainstorm is going to continue,” Bryson said.
The sale closed Oct. 3. Bryson, citing a confidentiality agreement, said he could not reveal the purchase price.
Brainstorm has about 10,000 customers in western Colorado and northwest New Mexico. The company provides Internet service to major customers such as the Southern Ute Indian Tribe, Durango School District 9-R, Fort Lewis College and San Juan Regional Medical Center in Farmington.
Brainstorm, which has 22 employees, was founded in 1999 by Calvin Cook, Brad Caskey and Shan Wells. Wells left to start his own company, and Bryson bought out Cook and Caskey in 2005. Brainstorm’s territory ranges from Grand Junction to Farmington.
“There’s a need to build and innovate, and Forethought is the right company to do that,” he said.
Jawaid Bazyar, president of Forethought.net, said the company had no plans to lay off employees at Brainstorm.
“We have no plans to do anything like that,” Bazyar said. “We will probably be shuffling responsibilities around a little bit. But again part of our strategy is having that local presence.”
Forethought.net competes against larger companies in the Denver area by being the type of company where a customer can speak to the president, Bazyar said.
The transaction could lead to personnel changes at Brainstorm, but Bryson said he expects the company to grow locally.
“There might be some adjustments because there’s some expertise they have (at Forethought.net) that’s duplicated here,” he said. “Probably when it’s all said and done there will be a net gain because the goal is to grow the business here and in the Front Range.”
Brainstorm was involved in the first efforts to bring high-speed Internet to Durango and the surrounding rural areas. Bryson said the company focused on areas neglected by large Internet service providers such as CenturyLink.
Internet access and speed vary widely in Southwest Colorado.
“Any of the sort of more rural areas are kind of a study in extremes,” Bazyar said. “Some parts of the Western Slope, people have almost nothing. In other parts of the Western Slope, people have the same service you’d expect in Denver.”
Forethought.net is eager to build on existing fiber infrastructure in the region, Bazyar said.
“There’s existing facilities that can be used to jump-start getting people on fiber,” he said.
Forethought.net is also working to emulate Google’s project that brought extremely fast gigabit fiber access to Kansas City. Kan., and other cities. The company also has a data center in Denver and offers cloud computing, phone and server hosting services.
Bryson said he and his family will continue to live in Durango. Bryson said he wants to spend more time on his consulting and training business, On the Edge Productions, and with his children. He expects to continue consulting on some of Brainstorm’s ongoing strategies.
cslothower@durangoherald.com
Brainstorm had three founders. An earlier version of this story said there were only two.
