ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Wednesday, September 11, 1996 TAG: 9609130101
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: B-8 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: GREG EDWARDS
Tele-Path Instruments, a Salem-based maker of test equipment for the telephone industry, has completed a 15,000-square-foot expansion of its plant near Apperson Drive.
The addition, to be used for manufacturing, will increase the size of the plant by nearly 75 percent.
Tele-Path was founded in Salem in 1972 as Tele-Path Industries Inc. as a telephone equipment maker and switched its emphasis under new owners in 1983 to test equipment. The company moved into its current plant in August 1994 and changed its name after it was purchased for $25 million last September by Dynatech Corp. of Burlington, Mass., also a supplier of communications equipment.
Tele-Path, part of Dynatech's Telecommunications Techniques Corp., employs 113 people in the Roanoke Valley, up from 80 this same time last year.
At the time of its sale last year, Tele-Path's sales were running around $20 million annually. It makes all kinds of test equipment, but a major part of its business now is for test equipment for Integrated Services Digital Networks, a technology that allows voice, data and video to be transmitted simultaneously over standard copper phone lines.
The company will hold a private ribbon-cutting ceremony Friday for its addition.
LENGTH: Short : 33 linesby CNB