TelSpan -Worldwide Conferencing

News Release: April 22, 2010

TelSpan, the Indianapolis-based provider of worldwide conferencing services, is celebrating its 20th year in business in 2010.  TelSpan, officially incorporated in the state of Indiana in February of 1990, was founded by J. Bruce Laughrey, who owned MediSpan at the time.  TelSpan was established as a separate entity from MediSpan, and JB Laughrey, Inc. was formed to be the parent company.

Mr. Laughrey’s initial idea was to use TelSpan as a separate entity to distribute MediSpan’s drug interaction information to patients over the telephone via 800 and the then-new 900 numbers.  According to Mr. Laughrey, “The idea was kind of like today’s Text for Haiti to make a donation which appears on your cell phone bill. Our idea was to provide medical information via the phone, and the charge would appear on the patient’s phone bill.”  Mr. Laughrey tasked a MediSpan employee, Larry Flaten, to set up the TelSpan operations.  Mr. Flaten came up with a related idea to utilize the phone system, now patented by TelSpan, called TeleCredit.  According to Mr. Flaten, “The idea was the old rebate idea in reverse. Instead of charging people on their phone bills, they would apply for a rebate using an 800 number, and the customer who dialed the number would receive a credit on their phone bill.”  Purina ran a very successful rebate program through the TeleCredit model with TelSpan. 

The entrepreneurs continued to look for ideas to grow their new company.  Mr. Flaten’s next idea was for an 800 Calling Card, an audio greeting card which included a specific 800 number.   After the sender recorded a message, the recipient would dial the number and hear a personally recorded message from the sender.  At this time, Keith E. Locke, current President and CEO of TelSpan, serving as a Consultant for MediSpan purchased the first calling card for his wife, Linda!  More ideas followed, including TikChek, an automated sports ticket exchange system, on-phone testing, and automated prescription medication fulfillment services for the pharmaceutical industry.

While at MediSpan, Mr. Laughrey was a member of the executive council for NCPDP.  This pharmacy organization conducted many conference calls, and Mr. Laughrey was astounded by the high price of the conference calls at that time.  Sensing a strong business opportunity, Mr. Laughrey and Mr. Flaten hired a programmer who designed and built TelSpan’s original RSC audio conferencing bridges.  In 1995, Mr. Laughrey hired Mr. Locke to direct TelSpan’s operations full-time. Mr. Locke continues to guide TelSpan through the world of conferencing and communications services, with on-site operators and web support, making it the growing, worldwide, conferencing and streaming services provider it is today.

TelSpan was founded on Mr. Laughrey’s guiding principles of E3 (Excellence Exceeding Expectations) service, a client service standard which remains at the heart of each TelSpan service and client interaction.  In today’s quickly changing world of telecommunications, TelSpan is proud to celebrate twenty years of providing clients with E3 service and the best possible world-class conferencing and communications services in the industry.

About TelSpan

Founded in 1989, TelSpan is an Indianapolis-based primary provider of conferencing related services, including web, audio, and video conferencing, streaming, recording, online registration, and operator-assisted event and Q&A conferences.  TelSpan focuses upon providing high quality conferencing services to organizations worldwide with guaranteed E3 (Excellence Exceeding Expectations) service.  For more information, please visit TelSpan’s website at http://www.telspan.com.

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If you would like more information about this topic, please contact Marie Nolan at 800-600-6458 ext. 650 or e-mail Marie at nolanm@telspan.com.