Clay Scott, who has watched the evolution of LANs, characterizes a migration to fiber as ‘replacing bicycles with airplanes’

In the network solutions industry, Clay Scott is one of those folks who serves as a human bridge between old and new technologies.  As fiber-based networks gain a greater foothold in the market, fewer personnel are familiar with legacy network configurations, equipment and maintenance.

“Just because I’ve been around long enough to remember the days when copper was king doesn’t necessarily mean I’m nostalgic for that era,” said Scott, with a grin, during a recent interview in his Hanover, Maryland office.

Scott, a former Verizon employee, serves as an operations manager for Noovis.

The Evolution of LANs

“Clay strengthens our continuum of competency,” said Mike Watts, Noovis vice president.  “He can support old, copper-based networks, both ISP and OSP, as we help clients migrate to state-of-the-art fiber-based LANs.”

After earning a BA in economics, Clay Scott took an entry-level job with Verizon.  Over time he gained practical experience in various aspects of fiber network installation and maintenance.  He was promoted first to a position where he scheduled and oversaw fiber cable installation crews, and then to head up Verizon’s No Light (troubleshooting) crews.

“It was an exciting time to be at Verizon,” said Scott.  “We were building the FiOS network – one of the boldest forays into fiber that anyone had attempted.”

Scott was recruited to Noovis by a former Verizon colleague, Mike Stedman.  “Mike and I are close and he talked me into coming here because he was impressed with the things Noovis was doing.  He said this company is going places and that I should be part of it.”

“We are focused on next-generation campus networks and we need people like Clay Scott who understand how a fiber-distributed network should be implemented in a large enterprise with legacy copper,” said Stedman, an operations manager at Noovis.  “Getting him to join Team Noovis was a strategic win for us, believe me.”

Scott said he loves working at Noovis.  “We have such a great group of talented people.  The main advantage Noovis has is its experience and fearless entrepreneurial spirit.  We are taking our industry to unchartered waters.  For example, what we’ve done at Erickson Living, the first deployments of Cisco ONTs in North America – we’re using proven solutions but we’re putting new technology on the end.  This is cutting edge.”

“Fiber’s flexibility – unlimited carrying capacity – means you’ll never pull cable again.  You’ll have to change equipment on the ends from time to time, but this is the last pipe you’ll ever lay,” said Scott. “We’re replacing bicycles with airplanes.”