From: "Paul Balster" <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Fri, 22 Jul 2005 14:46:38 +0100

AFB Accessworld
Thursday, July 21, 2005

>From Optacon to Oblivion: The Telesensory Story

By Deborah Kendrick

When Stan Messmer arrived at his job on Monday morning, March 14, 2005,
he expected to go through the door and head for his desk as had been his
routine for 10 years. Instead, he was greeted by a security guard, who
instructed him to go to the main entrance. There, he joined 60-plus
fellow workers who were gathered in one room and were informed briefly
and bluntly by their president and CEO that, in Stan Messmer's words,
"The game was over." The company had declared bankruptcy and was closing
immediately, and all the employees were escorted to their private work
areas to retrieve their personal belongings and leave.

The company was Telesensory Corporation, the oldest company in the
arena of assistive technology for people who are blind, and its abrupt
end came as a complete surprise to everyone--from stockholders and
customers to dealers and the top management, with the exception of
President Ken Stokes who made the announcement. It was the hottest rumor
just one day later at CSUN 2005 (the Technology and Persons with
Disabilities conference hosted by California State University at
Northridge's Center on Disabilities), where industry peers looked in
amazement at the empty booth space that Telesensory had reserved in the
exhibit hall and repeated the unbelievable but true tale of the
company's demonstration of disregard for its employees.

Just weeks before the company closed, Messmer, who managed inside
sales, attended a meeting where long-term goals for the company's sales
were discussed. There was no announcement of cash-flow problems, no
warning of layoffs, and no indication that such a traumatic event might
occur. Not only were all the employees abruptly displaced without
vacation pay, sick pay, severance pay, or medical insurance, but they
were informed after the closing was announced that there had been no
medical coverage since March 1 because the payment to the insurer had
not been made.

"I had suspected that a merger was about to happen," Messmer commented.
"That's what all of us thought. But nothing like this."

Another View

Art Bookbinder, senior vice president and a Telesensory employee since
1984, had a slightly different suspicion. His understanding was that the
company had a shortfall of about $1.8 million (estimates are that the
debt was closer to the $12 million range) and that the closed meeting of
the board that was held on March 12 would result in a plan for the
directors somehow to come up with the money on their own. When he
received the telephone call in New York from Telesensory president Ken
Stokes on Sunday, just a day before most others would be told, he, too,
was shocked.

For 35 years, Telesensory has been a recognized name around the world
in assistive technology products for people who are blind or have low
vision. How did a company whose history was marked by a string of
successes and legendary products and people crash and burn in such an
appalling manner? Although a complete explanation may not be apparent to
anyone at this point, we can at least examine the "what" of the story.

History

Telesensory began operating in 1970 in Mountain View, California. The
Optacon, a device that translates print into a tactile vibrating image,
showed promise as a successful reading device for people who are blind.
Developed for the daughter of John Linvill of Stanford University's
electrical engineering department, the machine was enthusiastically
sought by blind people and their advocates--and, indeed, remains a
significant tool in the access toolbox for many people who are blind
today. Linvill, with his colleague Jim Bliss, set up the company, and
before long, it was known not only for the Optacon, but for other
innovations in assistive technology as well.

Didn't You Work at Telesensory?

Many familiar people in the assistive technology field today--who are
now associated with such assistive technology companies as Kurzweil,
HumanWare, and Freedom Scientific, as well as myriad small businesses
that design or distribute assistive technology products--launched their
careers at the then-legendary Telesensory. Noel Runyan, now president of
Personal Data Systems in Campbell, California, who was with the company
from 1978 to 1983, recalled his experience at Telesensory with a blend
of fondness and frustration. As an applications engineer--and perhaps
the first blind person to work for the company--Runyan described the
Telesensory environment in the 1970s and 1980s as bursting with the
energy of young, talented, creative people who were racing to develop
great products for people who are blind--"and spending money like crazy"
to do it. The VersaBraille emerged from that exciting environment--a
cassette tape-based device that recorded information digitally and
displayed text on a 20-cell braille display. Developed initially for the
National Library Service for the Blind and Physically Handicapped, the
device was rejected for that organization's Talking Book program, but
was embraced by blind users everywhere.

Telesensory's economic success began to shift somewhat in the mid-1980s
when it bought a company named Apollo in 1984 and started selling
products for people with low vision; and then in 1989 bought Visualtek,
a company that specialized in closed-circuit television systems (CCTVs)
and other low vision products. Larry Israel, Visualtek's CEO, became a
member of the Telesensory board and later ran the company for a time. In
recent years, Israel was again connected to the company by serving on
its board of directors.

A Change in Focus

In the late 1990s, Telesensory shifted its emphasis from products for
people who are blind to focus on CCTVs, magnifiers, and products for
people with low vision. When the company continued to decline, Ken
Stokes, of New Zealand, was hired. Stokes had served previously as
chairman of the board of Pulse Data International. His primary directive
at Telesensory was to sell the company.

Unfortunately, none of the companies that were approached was
interested in buying Telesensory. Art Bookbinder, who was part of just
about every aspect of managing the company except working with the
board, believes that the approach was far too narrow in focus. There
were, he believes, private investors who would have gladly participated
in rescuing Telesensory. Still, even Bookbinder was astounded when the
amount of debt was revealed.

Of the 120 individuals whose livelihood depended upon Telesensory,
perhaps the luckiest ones are the 18 independent dealers around the
country. "Most of them had been with the company 15 to 20 years,"
Bookbinder explained. "And they were like family." The day after he
learned that the company was closing--the same day that the on-site
employees were informed and Stokes sent an e-mail message to all the
others--Bookbinder brought the dealers together on a conference call. At
that meeting, they developed a strategy. Conveniently, it happened to be
the beginning of the CSUN conference, where all of the other low vision
product distributors would most likely be present. The erstwhile
Telesensory dealers rented a meeting room and orchestrated meetings with
each of the other companies with whom they might forge agreements.
Calling themselves the Bookbinder Group, they saw their answer to
continued employment in becoming distributors for former competitors.

"It worked out pretty well for most of the dealers," Bookbinder said.
"They might pull companies like Optelec out of the doldrums and increase
business for companies like MagniSight and HumanWare."

Many former employees, however, have not been so lucky. Stan Messmer,
like many of his former colleagues, scrambled for the first few days
just to find health insurance. He did--and is paying for coverage
privately at an enormous cost. Meanwhile, the primary focus for most
former employees is to find new jobs. "The list of creditors before
those of us who are owed vacation and sick leave is so phenomenal,"
Messmer said, "and we're so far down the list, that I really don't have
any hope of getting any of the money that Telesensory owes me."

When Imitation Is Not Flattery

After 35 years, a giant in the assistive technology industry--a company
that was steeped in legend and lore and produced many products--appears
to be gone forever. Usually, it is a good thing to see the assistive
technology field reflecting trends in the mainstream marketplace.
Shutting down overnight, leaving long-time employees without jobs, and
defaulting on obligations to workers, distributors, and customers are
trends from the mainstream corporate world that most of us did not
expect to witness in the field of assistive technology.

Still, although former CEO Stokes has returned to New Zealand and
neither he nor former directors were reachable for comment, not all is
entirely lost. Creditors have installed seven former Telesensory
employees in a California warehouse, where the company's products,
manufactured in Malaysia, have for years been prepared for final
shipping. Calls made to the toll free number that once belonged to
Telesensory are now being routed there, and handled by that small group
of individuals. Requests for technical support are being answered, in
other words, and commitments made by warranties still pending are being
honored. What, if anything, happens next remains to be seen.

http://www.afb.org/afbpress/pub.asp?DocID=aw060403

All the best

from:

Colin R. Howard.


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