Our Team: Telecommunications Professionals You Can Trust:
Mark Wadnizak: President and CEO
Since 1982 and the very beginning of the deregulation and privatization of the telecommunications
industry, Mark Wadnizak has been owner of Southern Counties Telephone, Inc. in Ventura,
California, a private telecom company. He started the company with his father, and
upon the unfortunate death of his father in 1986, Mark assumed the role of President
and CEO. He is responsible for growing the company from a small cabling and telecom
company to one of the largest and most respected telecom companies in California
known for its exactitude in engineering and innovative, solution specific technical
expertise.
Mark was born in Ventura in 1960, yet he was educated in London, England from prep
school through London University Queens College where he studied physics. The transmission
of sound has always interested him, and his first entrepreneurial venture – begun
at age 19 – was his founding of the company, Andromeda Lighting and Sound in Belfast,
Ireland. Andromeda eventually became one of the largest sound and lighting companies
in all of Europe. Mark sold his interest in that firm and departed for the U.S.
and the telecom business in 1982.
Mark has steered Southern Counties Telephone, Inc., dba Teleco, dba Voice Smart
Networks through several incarnations and adaptations in the marketplace as the
telecom industry has moved from analog to digital to voice and data to voice over
internet protocol (VoIP) and complete integrated voice and data convergence. Seeing
the trends in communications before they became trends, Mark, while President and
CEO of Southern Counties Telephone, Inc., founded in 1993 and was CEO of another
company called Xenium Communications which invented state of the art software for
computer telephony automatic call distribution (ACD) applications, and specifically
invented the "call back in queue" software. This and many other of Xenium's advances
were later adopted by all major telecommunications companies. Xenium had exclusive
OEM contracts with Mitel, a Canadian company and one of the largest telecommunications
companies in the world.
Mark's involvement in the telecom industry has always evolved around his technical
expertise and superior engineering capabilities and efficient customer service applications.
Even though he has maintained his leadership role in the company, he has still maintained
his current certifications for Mitel, Inter-Tel and Shore Tel telecommunications
systems, and he is Cisco CCNA qualified.
Mark is married, lives in Ventura, California, and enjoys skiing, fishing abalone
diving and reading.