Introducing Lumen Technologies to Pittsburgh

Lumen CEO Jeff Storey espouses a unique and powerful mantra that guides the global tech company: “Lumen is guided by the belief that humanity is at its best when technology improves the way we live and work every day.”

Chip VanAlsburg brings that concept to life in the Pittsburgh office and is genuinely excited about the possibilities Lumen brings to local clients that span practically every industry vertical. VanAlsburg is a native of the region and traces his career all the way back to the Yellow Pages. He has been there for every twist and turn in the fast-paced telecommunications and technology worlds over the last two decades.

“Lumen has evolved from a telecommunications company to a technology solutions provider,” he said. “We have approximately 500,000 route miles of global fiber, which can help our clients reduce their expenses and increase reliability for our customers, both locally and nationally. It’s a platform for amazing things. Right now, we are one of the world’s most heavily peered networks and we carry a large percentage of global internet traffic.”

By amazing things, we are talking about the type of edge computing power that is lighting up the Fourth Industrial Revolution.

VanAlsburg explained that this revolution is redefining how we live and work, creating an unprecedented need for an advanced application delivery architecture—designed specifically to handle the complex and data-intensive workloads of next-gen technology and businesses.

“One of the ways we have completely embraced adaptability is through our commitment to our own digital transformation,” he said. “So, we’ve had to rethink how we’ve done things ourselves in order to deliver a solution to help customers solve business problems that several years ago weren’t there.”

VanAlsburg said the Lumen platform leverages a powerful combination of extensive assets, including an adaptive global network infrastructure, edge cloud capabilities, connected security and communication, and collaboration solutions. 

“The Lumen platform gives our enterprise customers the flexibility, security and speed they need to power the applications of today and emerging applications of the future,” he said. “It marks a deliberate strategy to bring together all of Lumen’s assets, IP, financial investments and human capital to help solve the technological challenges faced by organizations today. We’re here to support the high-bandwidth, low-latency needs of modern apps and the businesses that rely on them.”

The platform serves as a solid foundation for Lumen clients to build and deploy true Fourth Industrial Revolution digital experiences, including smart cities, retail and industrial robotics, real-time virtual collaboration and automated factories. 

Underpinning all of this technology is a complete commitment to security. “As cyberattacks become more common and sophisticated, piecemeal security solutions are no longer sufficient to protect critical data and applications,” said VanAlsburg. “We have some of the most advanced tools and automation needed to proactively identify, mitigate and respond to potential security issues before they can cause harm.”

VanAlsburg is excited to grow Lumen’s presence in Pittsburgh and sees a true synergy between the two. He compares Lumen’s roots that go back to the late 1930s to Pittsburgh’s legacy of industrial might that have both evolved into technology powerhouses. Lumen works with traditional companies and fast-growing startups on the cusp of revolutionizing the market.

“Just like we have had to change, think about all of the legacy companies in Pittsburgh that had to change,” concluded VanAlsburg. “Lumen can not only help those companies with IT solutions, but we have the flexibility and adaptability to grow with the smaller startups as well.”