This October, Vistacom is excited to celebrate its 65th year in business. Since planting roots in Allentown, Penn. in 1954, we are proud to have grown tremendously right alongside the community.

Vistacom originated as the Daveland Company, which was started by Jack Ferlino and six employees. Those six grew to 75 and the company shifted leadership to Jack’s son, Jim, who serves as President, along with his daughter, Angela Nolan, who serves the company as COO. Together, they guide the business through strategic planning and forward-thinking forecasting for the company’s growth. However, the team they’ve assembled is instrumental to Vistacom’s success.

At its core, Vistacom is a technology-focused company, and though it has changed throughout the years and has expanded Vistacom’s geographic footprint with business across the United States and internationally, the company is still a community-based, family-run business. Throughout the last six decades, we’ve been honored to work on some unique and large-scale projects that we’d love to share with you:

1950s: First paging system
Air Products and Chemicals hired the Daveland Company to integrate one of the company’s first paging systems. While brand new technology at the time, paging systems are still used today in many medical facilities.

1960s: Allentown’s first air raid system
With the fears of the Cold War looming, Vistacom was hired to install one of the first giant voice systems, which ended up being the city’s first and only public air raid system.

1980s: Veteran’s Stadium
Former home of the Philadelphia Phillies and Eagles, Veterans Stadium was one of the largest installments Vistacom had ever done. Our staff, including our now-president Jim, set up the entire sound system in the stadium so fans will never miss a pass or umpire call.

1990’s: AT&T Bedminster Network Operations Center
In 1999, Vistacom installed the largest control room in the world, AT&T Bedminster Network Operations Center. Our work on this projects allowed our company to find one of our specialities: control rooms, a niche in the AV market. Since this project, Vistacom has continued to grow as a leader in the control room market, with dedicated control room staff in every department.

Present Day: Lehigh Valley Health’s AICU
Vistacom has continued to develop and install some of the latest and greatest solutions for businesses not just in Pennsylvania, but also across the country. Our work with Lehigh Valley Health Network is a perfect example of how far technology has come and how we can improve lives and business processes.

The Advanced Intensive Care Unit (AICU) at Lehigh Valley Health Network brought in Vistacom to help make their unit one of the future. With the installation of two-way audio and video in patients’ rooms for doctors to tele-visit, to tying cameras and the other medical equipment into a control room for better analytics of each patient’s health, the technology installed was able to make a significant impact by reducing the unit’s mortality rate.

Present Day: Lehigh Valley Health’s The Air Products Center for Connected Care and Innovation
Also at Lehigh Valley Health Network, Vistacom was brought in to create a modern space devoted to developing and testing innovative ideas in health care for the community. Some of the unique projects at The Air Products Center for Connected Care and Innovation included a geocoding system to track homeless camps so its street medicine team can provide follow-up care; a BabyCam that allows family members across the world to watch live videos of newborns; and the Virtual Inpatient Check-in/Check-out, which connects surgeons and their patients via secure video to ensure a patient who had surgery the previous day is ready to go home. The Center also included telemedicine training rooms, conference rooms and huddle rooms, and a lot more.

Present Day: City of Philadelphia Traffic Operations Center
We’ve seen over the years how interconnectivity is key to help streamline and improve functionality in various environments, and government operations are no exception. Recently, Vistacom worked with the City of Philadelphia to update their traffic control nerve center, which included the integration of the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation, local police departments, other departments of first responders, and thousands of traffic cameras throughout a metropolitan area.

Each and every project Vistacom has taken on throughout the last 65 years has enabled our staff to obtain the comprehensive knowledge needed to address specific market needs and help us grow as a company. We’d like to thank everyone who has allowed us to reach this point of success and we’re looking forward to continuing our journey with forward-thinking innovation and a strong desire to help clients achieve their business goals in the future.