Stacey Slaughter, the CEO and CFO of Jones/NTCI, has finalized a deal to acquire the cable and broadband technology and services training company from Jones International, and plans to keep the firm based in the Denver area.
Slaughter (pictured) said she joined the bidding for the company when the Jones International board decided to seek a buyer for Jones/NCTI, a process that started following the passing of cable pioneer Glenn Jones in July. Jones International Academy closed its acquisition of NCTI,then a rival cable education and training firm, in January 2006.
Financial terms of the acquisition of Jones/NCTI were not disclosed, but Slaughter, who is coming up on her 20th year with Jones International, said she is now the sole owner of Jones/NCTI and financed the deal on her own.
Slaughter said she tossed her hat in the ring when the sales process for Jones/NCTI got underway in the late summer.
“I believe strongly in what we do,” she said. “I believe in this team and believe in the services we provide, the products that we develop and the partners that we have in the MSO industry. I have a strong commitment to see that [business] continue to grow.”
Slaughter said all 30 Jones/NCTI employees (in true Jones form, she refers to them as “associates”) will stay with the company, which will be rebranded as “NCTI" in the coming months.
Plans are also underway to move the company out of its current location, at the Jones headquarters building in Centennial, Colo., and set up new base of operations in nearby Littleton. Negotiations for the new space are ongoing, but Slaughter hopes to execute the move by February 2016.
“I wanted to make sure this team continued on their trajectory,” she said of her decision to buy the company, noting that developing training and courses for DOCSIS 3.1, fiber networks, and WiFi installation and troubleshooting will continue to be a near-term focus. NCTI, she added, will also focus on the “evolving the customer experience” as support increasingly links call centers with field technicians.
“I feel great about our prospects in 2016,” she said, adding that plans are underway to relaunch NCTI’s learning platform in the first quarter of next year.
Jones/NCTI, which has trained nearly 500,000 frontline employees since its founding, also offers a fully-accredited college certificate and degree program through a partnership with Arapahoe Community College.
Slaughter joined Jones International in January 1996 as a staff accountant and worked her way up from there. She was named CFO of Jones/NCTI in 2012, appointed acting CEO in late 2013, and named permanent CEO in 2014, when Glenn Jones was appointed executive chairman of the Jones/NCTI board. She received her undergraduate degree in accounting from the University of Washington in Seattle, and a Masters’ degree from the University of Colorado in 2001. She is a Certified Public Accountant and a member of the Colorado Society of CPAs.
