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DO YOU
KNOW? Peter Joseph Dieppe III
Published on 11/25/10
BY Edward C. Fennell
efennell@postandcourier.com
Date and place of
birth: August 1949 in Charleston.
Residence: James
Island.
Occupation: Owner,
Charleston Telecommunication Consulting, James Island.
Family: Wife, Toni;
daughter, Kristin McCrosson; son, Peter "Bubba" J. Dieppe IV;
grandchildren, Matt, Harrison, Collin, Anna and Joseph.
Education: University
of South Carolina and LaSalle University.
Job description:
Managing sales and technical issues affecting the telecommunication
industry.
Words that best
describe me: Disciplined, competitive, humble, caring, blessed.
Talents/Hobbies:
Captaining a fishing boat, running and hunting.
Something the area I
live in needs: Police and dogcatchers.
First car: Pontiac
two-door woody without a hood.
Something I do that
is silly but fun: Leave crazy voice mail for my incoming callers.
When I was younger, I
wanted to be: Successful.
First job: Mechanic's
helper and "grease monkey" at James Oldsmobile.
Best advice I've been
given: Never allow one man to control my destiny, from the Marine
Corps, 1969.
Unforgettable moment
in my life: My first night at Parris Island in 1969.
UNSUNG HERO PETE DIEPPE
Published
on 03/06/05
BY
Adam Ferrell
Of The
Post and Courier Staff
With Pete
Dieppe, what you
see is what you get. The broad shouldered, middle-aged ex-Marine and
business owner looks like a force you would not want against you. He's
a hulk of a man with a strong, matter-of-fact way of speaking. His eyes
burn with determination.
Over the last
several
months, he used that heat to fight for threatened bicycle lanes along
Folly Road. To many local runners and cyclists, he's a hero.
"It was amazing
all the
e-mails I got," said the James Island resident, referring to the
onslaught of praise he's received recently.
Dieppe first
battled for the lanes back in October.
He left his Sol
Legare Road
home at 5 a.m. for his daily run, but that morning, as he headed up
Folly Road and neared Battery Island Drive, his path disappeared
beneath his feet.
"I went into
about an 18-inch hole," he recalled.
He quickly
discovered that
a $400,000 intersection improvement job had added a turn lane at the
expense of about 500 feet of bicycle lane along both sides of Folly.
With no signs to mark the merge, runners and cyclists were forced to
swerve either into traffic or into the marsh.
He knew that
several people
had been struck by vehicles and killed along Folly, so losing what
pedestrian space existed got his blood boiling. Dieppe contacted state
Rep. Wallace Scarborough, who had negotiated with S.C. Department of
Transportation to fix the intersection. Scarborough promised to bring
back the bike lanes, and after several weeks and another phone call
from Dieppe, it was done.
Scarborough
praised DOT and
Commissioner Bob Harrell in a Nov. 9 letter to the editor in The Post
and Courier for quickly fixing the problem.
It wasn't long
before
Dieppe was called to duty again, this time because of the new Piggly
Wiggly being built at Folly and Sol Legare.
First, a
Charleston
Commissioners of Public Works crew cut two chunks from the bike path,
Dieppe said. So Dieppe asked CPW to repair the damage, and workers came
back and patched up the holes.
Dieppe went to
the front
lines again recently after construction crews created the entrance to
the grocery store. The project cut through a stretch of the bicycle
lane and left a line of orange cones that again forced runners and
cyclists into the road, Dieppe said.
He said he
contacted Joseph
T. "Buzzy" Newton III, president of Piggly Wiggly Carolina Co. Inc.,
and asked him to fix the problem, saying that otherwise, he could
expect lots of e-mails.
"Runners and
cyclists are fanatics," Dieppe said.
A couple of
weeks ago, as
Dieppe ran by the store one morning, he moved the cones out of the path
and closer to the store's new entrance. As construction workers
approached him, more than a dozen cyclists rode through thanking him,
Dieppe said. He told the construction workers that he'd move the cones
every day if he had to, Dieppe said.
Last week,
Newton called
Dieppe to tell him new lines would be painted across the entrance to
restore the bike lanes. It was soon done.
"Once he got on
this issue,
he was going to beat the bushes until it was resolved," said Mike
Loggins, who co-owns The Extra Mile local athletic stores and has known
Dieppe for nearly eight years. "He's just a great guy. He goes to bat
whenever we need him."
"Unsung Heroes"
is a
regular GMLc feature on Sundays, our kinder, gentler day. We welcome
your suggestions for candidates. Whom do you know in our community who
does random acts of kindness, performs good deeds for the sake of
goodness or simply makes us all smile? Give assistant city editor
Stephanie Harvin a call at 745-5851 or fax her at 745-5871. You can
e-mail her at sharvin@postandcourier.com.
Sunday,
March 25, 2001 edition of The Post and
Courier, Charleston Telecommunication Consulting
was named a one of “Charleston’s
Pacesetters” for the telecommunication
industry.
As Technology
Advances, Telephones Depend on Computers
CTC
Imagine picking up a telephone in Charleston and calling an office
colleague in San Francisco, simply by punching in his four-digit
extension.
It’s
a scenario that’s not too far off, says Pete Dieppe,
president and CEO of Charleston Telecommunications Consulting, a firm
that specializes in merging voice and data business systems using fiber
optic lines and computer control centers.
“You
could have consecutive extension numbers (i.e. 4001, 4002) clear across
the country,” says Dieppe.
Helping
companies make the leap from traditional voice telephones to
today’s computer and network-based phone system has helped
Charleston Telecommunication Consulting, or CTC, more than triple its
work force in just one year, swelling from seven employees to 25.
“What’s
happened is the voice and the data worlds are combining,”
says Dieppe, who founded the company in 1994 after a 22-year career
with AT&T and Southern Bell.
“Back
then all you had to do was make sure the phones worked and had dial
tones. Now that’s all changing. Voice and data are going
through this migration where they are combining efforts.”
CTC
has helped a number of area companies and governments make the switch
to modern systems, including municipalities Charleston and Mount
Pleasant, as well as several area entertainment venues, such as Joseph
P. Riley Jr. Ballpark and the North Charleston Performing Arts Center.
CTC
also wired the communications backboard for two area hospitals, East
Cooper Medical Center and Hilton Head Memorial.
A relationship with Canada-based Mitel has fueled most of the
company’s recent growth, Dieppe says.
CTC
is a Mitel dealer, meaning they buy, install and maintain Mitel systems.
One such Mitel product, a tracking system designed for the hospitality
industry, has helped CTC strike deals with several downtown hotels,
including the recently
renovated Holiday Inn on Calhoun Street.
The company also is a dealer of Avaya, AT&T and Samsung products.
Dieppe
says CTC’s one-stop-shopping approach makes his company
unique.
By
handling all aspects of their clients’ needs – from
consulting to installation and maintenance, CTC remains competitive
because many businesses looking to make high-tech upgrades prefer to
deal with a single firm, rather than several specialists.
“My
customer doesn’t care if it’s phone, wire or a
computer problem,” Dieppe says. “Our job is to get
the problem fixed.” And sometimes, fixing things
doesn’t even require a house call.
Most
of the telephone and computer networks CTC installs are maintained by
remote, Dieppe says, and troubleshooting usually can be done off-site,
at CTC’s Folly Road office or elsewhere.
“I can sit on my chair at home and fix a problem without
going there.”
BY
RON MENCHACA
Of
the Post and Courier Staff
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