TBaytels New President
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TBaytels New President

TBaytels New President and CEO Positive On Thunder Bay and Its Future

By Scott A.Sumner Thunder Bay Business

imagePeter Diedrich, age 43, President and CEO of Tbaytel began his new job Oct 3, 2006.  Originally from Ottawa, Diedrich started his  career as a electrical engineer working for Bell Northern Research. During that time they sent me to get a Masters of Engineering and  later at Nortel I went full time to earn an  MBA at MIT in Boston,noted Diedrich. They sent me to China for three years to work on some switching products until 1995. I left then after having enough of China and their culture and went to work for management consulting company McKinsey and Company doing a lot of work for in technology in Canada, the US and South America.  Diedrich then left for Bell to be Vice President of Corporate Strategy  and on to RBC to run a telecommunications venture capital fund. Finally he left to be a partner in Ottawa of a venture capital firm there doing very much the same thing as with RBC.

One of the companies we invested in was Avaya and we introduced the same product at Tbaytel three weeks ago. The opportunity to run a telecommunications firm that is quite well difersified in its service mix, has a very good opportunity to grow in this region which is very much ignored by the big players was exciting to me, smiles Diedrich.

Our people know how northerners think. They want to deal with people who make decisions about the region in Thunder Bay, not Toronto or Vancouver. We have a very nice  opportunity to grow here. I am not here to turn things down. Im here to turn them on.

 The first time I was ever in Thunder Bay was in August when I flew in on a beautiful summer day over the Sleeping Giant  and the Welcome Islands.  I fell in love with it immediately. My family love it and we are building a new house in River Terrace and we will be here to stay. states Diedrich who has a wife, son and daughter.

Will Tbaytel provide the most advanced technology to our region?  I was in Toronto last week and my Blackberry works perfectly there. You can surf the web, make a phone call and get an email. In the past we waited for Bell or Nortel to determine what we could get and now Im not waiting. We are introducing products from other vendors  and are partnering aggressively with alternative players. I spent 6 years as a venture capitalist  investing in technology that would help service providers like Tbaytel advance their services. Im not waiting for some other big vendor to tell me when I can do that. I know I can do it now.smiles Diedrich. smiles Diedrich.

There is a tremendously successful education vertical here with the folks at Lakehead and the College. There is also a health care vertical at the Regional Health Sciences which I think is unparrelled, I really do. If I had to get health care in Ottawa I dont think Id want to live in Ottawa. I d rather live here, states Diedrich. We have several unique assets here. The health care, education and telecommunications verticals and a very, very supportive city. The economy is in a transition to a technology economy. Tbaytels  role is to help the education vertical to deliver better services to their clients- professors,  researchers and students. In health care it is to the health care researchers and patients.It is not about coming in and selling a few extra phone lines but becoming a communications partner.
Is Tbaytel concerned about competition?

imageI am always concerned about competition.We have Rogers on the wireless side.  Teleco on the business solution side and Shaw on the video side. We also have Bell Canada.They have been digging trenches along Balmoral. Competition is good. It keeps us lean, effective and focused on customers. If we are not we will lose the business. noted Diedrich. This service centre expansion is a  pretty big milestone in Tbaytels history. We have amalgamates our services into one building getting the right people  together and creating a platform for us to grow. This hub is a great asset. The investment is $1 million here and another $1.5 million into management systems that will allow us to take an order and flow it through electronically to get that service in your house or business quickly.We are small and agile because of our size.

The energetic Diedrich likes to play golf as a 4 handicap playing some 65 games last year. He also snowboards, loves  the outdoors and has found some pretty good restaurants in town as well.

Al Birch, is the Tbaytel Vice President Field Operations. We completed an addition on the existing work centre which was built by Manshield. The construction went very well, starting in May and we moved in September. It is 4700 square feet addition where we  have combined all of our 24 hour operations under one roof which gives us great efficiencies coming from three sites, says Birch. Of the 45 people working here now only two were here previously. This is a 24 hour operation with 3 shifts per day, 7 days a week. Here we have operator services, network manager services and the internet help desk.  We can focus the operations under one manager.  We monitor our equipment on these screens.  from the Manitoba border to Sault Ste Marie, Hearst and Red Lake.

Tbaytel has about 350 to 370 employees presently and seem posed for growth in Northwestern Ontario.



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