Crows Nest Entertainment Variety Of Services Key To Success For Entertainment Tech Firm

Crows Nest Entertainment’s office, less than a year old, shines like a bright new idea.

Behind vast plate glass windows, cutting-edge television equipment gleams. Exotic speakers dangle from the ceiling. Tucked out of sight is a high-tech board room, filled with the latest in video computer equipment.

Because Crows Nest is devoted to the latest in entertainment technology, it stands to reason the company would custom-build itself a glittering new office in a business park when it moved from Airway Heights last February.

But it didn’t.

Instead, the company, which celebrates its fifth anniversary this month, chose to renovate a downtown Spokane building at 1129 W. First, picking a gritty area where its neighbors include bars and an adult arcade.

The move gave the company great visibility, said Crows Nest President Jim Wessels, as well as access to the restaurants that are customers for the company’s digital music business.

Plus, it allowed Crows Nest to get in on the ground floor of a revitalized section of Spokane. Since the move, KHQ-TV has also announced it will move into the neighborhood, building a new, multi-million dollar studio at First and Jefferson.

“We love downtown,” said Wessels. “I believe there’s a renaissance downtown.”

But while Crows Nest chose to locate on West First, it certainly didn’t need to be there. Or even in Spokane.

A business with customers across the country, Crows Nest also operates out of offices in Bellevue and Redmond, Wash.

“A nationally focused business doesn’t have to be anywhere in particular,” Wessels said.

Founded by Wessels and Mark Haley, both Spokane natives, Crows Nest began life in 1994 as a distributor of digital music systems for restaurants and stores.

While it’s digital music business has expanded and contracted - it opened a San Francisco branch, then sold it to TCI - Crows Nest has spread into other areas of electronic entertainment.

Those include:

The design and installation of audio and video systems for stores, restaurants and businesses.

The systems range from a bank of televisions in a sports bar to sophisticated in-house advertising for more than 160 CompUSA computer stores.

The design of “smart homes,” wired for security, entertainment and electronics, where heat, light and sound are all adjusted from small, wall-mounted control panels. Many of Crows Nest’s smart home customers are in the Seattle area, where a generation of Microsoft executives are building homes with the latest high tech bells and whistles.

The design of telephone on-hold systems for businesses, that play a rotating selection of messages that announce sales and specials. For Columbia Paint, Crows Nest keeps tabs on messages for 30 stores and changes them from one computer.

“There’s a lot of different aspects to our business,” said executive vice president Pat Stimpson. “It’s part of our ingredient for success.”

And Crows Nest has been very successful.

The company grossed $5 million last year, Stimpson said, reaching that goal a year ahead of schedule.

As the company grows, it plans on expanding in new directions as well.

Crows Nest has begun to market video conferencing equipment that broadcasts images across the country or around the world, ideal for companies with far-flung divisions.

Previously, video conferencing was only possible through $10,000-an-hour satellite hook-ups, Wessels said. Now, new technology allows images to be transported over phone lines, and the video-conferencing business is expected to grow tenfold in the next few years.

“We intend to ride that growth curve nationally,” Wessels said.

Already, Crows Nest is installing video conferencing in four board rooms for Telect, a Spokane-based manufactured of fiber optics equipment.

So far, Telect has been impressed by Crows Nest’s services, said company spokeswoman Julie Moser.

“The project was somewhat complicated because it involved teleconferencing, audio, video and room design,” Moser said. “We were pleased to find a local supplier who could handle all aspects of the project.”

Future plans include the further marriage of home and office technologies, and the adoption of the newest equipment.

That’s the idea behind Crows Nest’s name, Wessels said.

“The guy in the crow’s nest is the first to see the new horizon,” he said. “We’re setting sail to the next generation. We really like the brand new stuff.”