In 2001 Chris Craig was hired into EventPoint Inc. Chris had just completed his Vocational Rehab training after being medically discharged from the Army.
Chris had attained several certifications at that time and was curious what was out there in the IT field.
It started as tech support and cabling for EventPoint in support of Microsoft’s major events show schedule.
EventPoint was doing the webdev stuff as well as the CommNet machines for attendees during that time.
This grew into wireless implementations across multiple clients as well.
In 2005 Microsoft approached EventPoint about taking over the whole onsite network of many of its conferences.
This included working with the circuit procurement, overlay or integration of gear into the various venues, server/routers/switch/wifi configurations and their deployments.
This started as just two engineers, growing to a core 4 engineers thru 2012.
It also entailed managing and monitoring all the onsite stuff during the event and providing reports and historical data daily and post show.
At this point we were showcasing Microsoft products from the ISA/TMG firewalls and full AD/DC and MOM/SCOM across 10 vlans to separate and segregate traffic and onsite needs to physical/logical security groups.
This involved multiple 7′ high rolling server racks, in duplicate sets, as many shows were overlapping in time frame.
Standard show timeframes are a three day load in, soft open on sunday, then a three to 5 day conference and an evening tear down to load out the next day.
EventPoint was also doing many project launches and keynotes year round and world wide at this time as well.
In 2009 EventPoint had many requests in two seemingly related, yet disparate areas of these events.
Some companies wanted just webdev and registration work done, and some clients wanted networking and wifi work, but no webdev or registration implementations.
To that end, EventPoint Inc, decided to break into two focuses and have two entities, EventPoint Inc and EPI Networks (EvenPoint Inc Networks).
This allowed us to do the all up work, but gave us two billing entities to apply across multiple groups as needed as most companies have separate budgeting silos for these work sets.
Chris became a 1/3 owner of EPI Networks with the forming of the new S Corp.
In 2013 Microsoft Events changed its number of shows and how they were being handled and managed.
EPI Networks took that opportunity to pick up work with other teams/silos at Microsoft. It allowed EPI to take on other clients that it previously could not, due to the demanding 20-30 shows yearly that the Events team had previously.
EventPoint decided they wanted to go back to focusing on their web dev side and all they had been doing. They gave Chris the option to take the EPI Networks side out on his own as sole owner.
Chris took this opportunity to grow the business into other teams/silos within Microsoft, as well as growing it outside of them.
This worked into multiple permanent installs across the country, eSports, sporting events and concerts, and new places and new venues with new clients around the globe.
Chris Craig has stayed the sole owner thru this timeframe.
With the changing and expansion of the business clientele and opportunities, some engineers and techs have stayed and some have left. With the demanding travel schedule this is to be expected, as what seems like a great opportunity can have unexpected hardship on the home front.
Currently EPI has a team of 10 Engineers and over 30 techs that have done multiple shows with us. We have staff all across the US proper and we have staff in the EU that we can draw on as well. We try to use the closest staff to fulfill the requirements to cut down on t/e costs, airfare and the like.
Using the best gear and most qualified IT professionals to handle events from hundreds of attendees to tens of thousands onsite.
