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When it comes to setting a company up for fast growth, it doesn't hurt to have good timing.
Robert Coughlin founded his networking company, Cross Telecom Inc. in 1996, and the business has exploded since. Companies are demanding more advanced data and communications services. And businesses like Cross Telecom have been more than happy to capitalize on the demand.
Burnsville-based Cross Telecom, which sells and installs equipment for Avaya Communications of Basking Ridge, N.J. (formerly Lucent Technologies), and serves as a sales agent for Denver-based Qwest Communications International Inc., has certainly taken part in the boom. The company's revenue has grown from $2.5 million in 1997 - its first full year of business - to $6.9 million in 1999. Coughlin expects to post nearly $12 million in revenue this year.
Part of the company's success, Coughlin said, can be attributed to the revolution in communications services that has taken place in the past few years. With Internet technologies and data...