The Unplanned Birth:

DuTEL Telecommunications, Inc. started out almost by accident. Founded by the late Tom Durell, DuTEL was born in New York City at the Statue Of Liberty on Liberty Weekend in 1986.

Several of Tom's friends in the entertainment industry were involved in producing Liberty Weekend and needed a temporary phone system in New York City, not to buy... only to rent. Tom just happened to have a system and some phones in his garage, so he (and several boxes of equipment) boarded a plane and went to The Big Apple to handle telecommunications for the huge David Wolper production.

The Word Got Out:

Word soon spread about this "temporary phone system you don't have to buy," and Tom, a sound engineer by profession, bought more phones and systems and spent less and less time doing the sound on movies and television shows. With the big phone companies (Pacific Bell, Bell Atlantic, GTE) providing "dial tone only" and no longer leasing equipment, Tom's little venture found a ready and willing clientele.

Professionalism and technical expertise, plus years of experience in the entertainment business, helped Tom and DuTEL stay very busy, taking new clients only by referral and still maintaining an unlisted phone number until 1999!

Every new staff member was trained in the "DuTEL Way," where TODAY means TODAY, and "the show MUST go on." That is still how we do it today.

Friends In High Places:

DuTEL's client list reads like a "Who's Who" in the world of entertainment production, news, fund raising and even politics. This could only have happened because of Tom Durell's unique background and because we have always valued and earned our clients' trust and confidence.

Though Tom passed away in 1998, the company continues on, evolving and growing with our customers, yet always vigilant to not take on too much, too fast! The company is owned by three of the employees, and so we don't answer to a group of uninvolved stockholders. Our's is a business built on loyalty and personal relationships, where each client's needs are of paramount concern to each and every member of the DuTEL Team.

A Little Bit About Our Founder:

If you've read this far, you know something about Tom Durell. Here's more: He grew up in California's Central Valley and began his entertainment career as a projectionist at a local Visalia theater. He worked in local radio and eventually made his way to Florida to help build a small new Orlando venture called Walt Disney World. After years at Disney, he returned to California working as a sound engineer on TV shows and movies (he was always proud of his work for Tim Burton's "Beetlejuice").

When DuTEL became a full-time venture, Tom loved traveling to New York to work on the Tony Awards, The Grammys, or whatever show needed some phones "temporarily, to rent, not to buy." He went to St. Petersburg in the USSR to do phones for the Goodwill Games, fought off rioters at Woodstock II, helped restore the historic Pantages Theater in Hollywood and loved being part of the making of TITANIC at Rosarita Beach, just south of Tijuana.

He is greatly missed by family and friends, though we all know that his legacy lives on in each and every job we at DuTEL take on.