Assurance Media’s Middletown team includes principal Mark Stellini, second from left, and Chris Honeycutt, sixth from the left in back, wearing dark vest. Photo from Assurance Media.
While Assurance Media will celebrate its 15th anniversary with a ribbon cutting and open house Friday in Milford, many of its employees have been working together for 20 to 35 years.
The company installs low-voltage cabling as well as offering security, audiovisual systems and managed service solutions.
Assurance sprang out of a Delaware information technology company, Info Systems, which included a small cabling division. Info Systems was sold by Mark Stellini and his sister Jennifer McKenzie to a national company in the early 2000.
A couple of years later, that national company decided it didn’t want the cabling division and asked Stellini if he wanted it back.
He said yes, and Assurance was founded in 2009.
Today, Assurance’s products and systems are in school, state, federal and commercial buildings, including ChristianaCare, Aramark and Burris Logistics, up and down Delaware.
Rob Jackie, director of infrastructure at Burris Logistics, a Milford food service company that relies on its chain of warehouses, said his company long has relied on Assurance for cabling needs, access control, security camera solutions and “general smart hands work for our national warehouse footprint.”
“Assurance Media team is a trusted partner and makes it their priority to understand our requirements,” he said. “We leverage their expertise to assure we implement the correct best cost technical solution for a site. Their communications and project management support has always met our expectations and beyond. We are looking forward to continuing our relationship with Assurance Media for many more years to come.”
Assurance Media’s camera kiosks, which provide surveillance for an entire parking lot, can be seen all over Delaware. Photo from Assurance Media.
Assurance growth
Stellini, now prinicipal at Assurance, declined to reveal annual revenue for the private company, but did say it’s growing by 30% a year and now has 80 employees.
It’s grown partly by acquisition.
The company was doing so much work in South Delaware, it bought competitor Under/Comm Inc.
Assurance’s 2018 acquisition of DTI had the biggest impact, doubling the number of its teammates.
That company was run by A.J. Rahman, who had worked at Info Systems. He has stayed on at Assurance as the A/V practice manager.
Stellini said the company’s employees are the key to its success.
“We’re family oriented and clearly a team,” he said. “We’ve been together for a long time. The reason we don’t have any turnover is because of how we treat each other. We show our team a tremendous amount of respect. They show it back for us. We know we care about each other, and that’s the real key of ours.”
Some of them have worked for the Stellini family before Assurance Media was founded, he said, with members celebrating 20 to 25 years of service.
“We don’t turn people over,” Stellini said. “Even young people who come to work for us have stayed. We’re very blessed. We’re very lucky. We’re all having fun. That’s the most important thing, all having fun.”
Chris Honeycutt, sales director, has worked with the Stellini family since 1998 and is about to celebrate his 26th anniversary.
“I love what I do,” he said.
He started as a technician and moved into security systems before moving into sales.
Honeycutt said his job makes him feel like he’s doing something positive in the world and making a difference in Delaware, especially when the company is helping someone solve problems.
He has particularly enjoyed the work that Assurance does in schools and seeing kids come into the school and use the tools that Assurance has helped install.
Many people who come to work for the company are surprised to find it’s not just a job.
“It’s more of a career move,” he said. “We don’t have a whole lot of turnover, and people stay, you know. We have a lot of career oriented folks.”
Both Stellini and Honeycutt said the company has benefited from the last decade’s explosive growth for low-voltage cabling and security.
“A lot more things have gone from high voltage to low voltage,” Stellini said. “In building materials, lighting now is now low voltage and they’re not running 110 outlets or 110 light fixtures. You’re running low voltage light fixtures. So it’s definitely picked up.
“We took over a cabling company that was primarily 95% cabling. We have changed it into being 60% security and AV and 40% cabling. So we definitely transitioned the company and have grown it, but there’s clearly more need right now.”
Everything the company does relies on that cabling, Honeycutt said, who describes Assurance’s services as separate “disciplines.”
The company’s anniversary celebrations will focus on customers.
“Over the past 15 years, we’ve had the privilege of working with amazing customers,” the company said in its invitation to the Milford ribbon-cutting at its new office at 198 Mullet Run.
The day will include food, beverages, product demonstrations and giveaways.
The party will be repeated Oct. 24 in Wilmington at the company’s headquarters in Boxwood Commerce Center.
