Connecting Tradition with Innovation

In the beginning we were WE – Western Electric. In 1956 Western Electric started to build a giant manufacturing plant southwest of Omaha, Nebraska to manufacture dial equipment and telephone cable. It would employ as many as 4,000 people – 10 times the 1950s population of nearby Millard, Nebraska . Employees moved into the plant in January 1958. Once full operation began, the Omaha Works quickly established a reputation for being a top-quality provider of exchange cable, crossbar and PBX equipment for the Bell System. In fact, by the late 1960's it had become the No. 1 producer of crossbar equipment in the nation. By 1971 employment peaked at 7,700.

In 1984 the telecommunications industry itself was in a state of flux. The company felt the brunt of this change with the Consent Decree of 1984 (Divestiture), when Bell operating telephone companies were spun off from AT&T. The Western Electric portion of the business stayed with AT&T, but the doors were now wide open to fierce competition within the industry. Western Electric would no longer be the sole provider of equipment to the Bell telephone companies.

In conjunction with the rapid-fire advancements in communications technology in the late 1980s and the early 1990s, the Omaha Works began making electronic wire and cable for data and audio transmissions as well as for telecommunications. Our cabinet line was expanded to accommodate wireless applications and the “Information Superhighway”.

In 1996 AT&T officially spun off the manufacturing portion of its business – the former Western Electric – and we took on yet another name: Lucent Technologies. On September 30, 2000, Lucent spun off its enterprise networking group which became Avaya Inc. Change happened again in 2004 when Avaya sold the Connectivity Solutions division to CommScope.

Ironically, if there is one thing that hasn't changed in the history of the Omaha Works, it is our capacity to change and build for the future. Change is as big a part of who we are within Connectivity Solutions as is making cable and associated network products all these years.