A solid, reliable team that works hard at what they do is vital when running a successful business. But that can only go so far if one doesn’t have a team that understands its role in the community. A business is not just a physical building that you walk past every day; it is a living, breathing entity with a very real impact—whether it’s philanthropic, economic, even cultural—on the community it resides in. So, when Qubit Networks in La Porte grew out of New Age Telecom and Ryan Seaburg was named President, he made a point to write three key values into the company’s foundation that it stills uses today: work hard, be a good teammate, and, most importantly in Seaburg’s eyes, be a good citizen.
“If you do those three things, you’re going to be successful,” Seaburg said. “Trying to do the right thing, trying to help people. We have a service mentality, so we try to help people as much as we can.”
The idea is simple: be a good person and put that into action by giving back to others and the less fortunate. For Seaburg and his team, this culture of citizenship and understanding your place in the community is far more important than strategy, far more important than anything else in the business world.
That has been true from the beginning. When Steve Tukos, founder of New Age Telecom, started the business in his barn, he focused on connection, both in terms of connecting people to technology, but also connecting people to “good, old-fashioned people-centric values.”
When Seaburg joined the New Age Telecom team in 1999, he took this focus to heart, eventually buying the company with his wife, Sarah, in 2011, setting the foundation for what would become Qubit Networks and its citizenship-centric business method.
Since launching the company in 2013, Seaburg and his associates have built a company that ties customer care and innovative technology together, expanding beyond the La Porte County community and into neighboring states. From network security to building a robust wireless technology, Qubit Networks provides the bridge for data to move from point A to point B in a way that works seamlessly for its customers, keeping digital assets, data, and networks safe and stable.
“We always try to work with companies that are doing innovative things. We take routers, switches, firewalls, access points, you name it that other companies make, and our mission is to make those products work for our customers,” Seaburg said.
“How do we make those things work for a business?” Seaburg said. “Every business has different needs, different budgets, different life cycles. Every customer has their own unique need, so how do we take these innovative products and make them work in order to meet those unique needs? That's the secret sauce.”
The way the company does business is innovative, too. Because the company’s foundation is built on just three key principles, Seaburg and his team reflect a company culture that puts customers’—and employees’—needs first.
“I have my own saying, ‘Profits are never going to exceed quality, profits are never going to exceed doing the right thing,’” Seaburg said. “There may be times where we do the right thing and we lose money, because it’s the right thing to do. In the long run, that is what creates not only loyal customers, but also loyal employees.”
“People want to work in a place that they know cares about people, that they know values them,” Seaburg said. “Because at the end of the day, nobody is going to care about how much money you make. They’re going to care that you were a good husband, a good wife, a good neighbor, a good coworker.”
Seaburg and his team have taken this philosophy and applied it to their work in the community. Sitting on boards like the La Porte Economic Advancement Partnership (LEAP) board has allowed Seaburg learn more about how he can be helping the community.
“A lot of us live in La Porte. Their kids go to school here, their bank is here, their family is here,” Seaburg said. “The fact that we are able to help move the community along, move our hometown along, is important to the company.”
“Having some diverse objectives and looks on business life has been so helpful in meeting that goal,” he said, speaking to LEAP’s diverse group of members with reaches into all corners of the community.
But Qubit Networks’ perspective on its actions’ impact on where it calls home extends far beyond La Porte County, creating a long-lasting legacy of putting people first.
“Technology is always changing. There is always going to be something new,” he continued. “But those three things, those three lessons are always going to stay the same. That was true a hundred years ago, it’s going to be true a hundred years from now.”
