Meet Rick Riviere, Founder of Two Rivers Conferencing

Thank you for allowing me this opportunity to introduce myself and Two Rivers Conferencing. My name is Rick Riviere and I am the managing Partner & Founder of Two Rivers Conferencing, LLC.

Two Rivers began business operations in December 2005 as a Conference Service Provider that enables businesses and professional organizations to more efficiently share and receive information among employees, customers, and strategic partners.

Two Rivers began business operations in December 2005 as a Conference Service Provider that enables businesses and professional organizations to more efficiently share and receive information among employees, customers, and strategic partners.

Many people ask me, “What is the business function of a Conference Service Provider?” Our primary function is to allow its customers to connect multiple telephone callers together onto a single conference call. We do this through specialized digital telecommunications equipment known as a conference bridge connected to a large number of telephone and data circuits. In addition, we also enable our customers to separately connect together multiple personal computer users to collaborate and share documents over the Internet with such products as Cisco WebEx, Adobe Connect, IBM LotusLive Meetings, Unified Meeting, and others. This web conferencing function is accomplished via a dedicated data server with specialized software connected to high capacity data circuits. We also offer Desktop video conferencing, and room-based video conferencing services.

My background in commercial communications & conference calling are major contributors to the ongoing success of TRC.

I was first employed as an Account Representative for Motorola Communications & Electronics where I sold two way radio and mobile data solutions to State & Local governments. Later, I became an Account Executive at Illinois Bell where I sold premise based telephone systems and network connectivity solutions to customers in the electrical and electronics industry.

I joined AT&T Information Systems after the Bell System Divestiture in 1982 as a Sales Manager where I first began participating in and later hosting conference calls attended by my fellow managers and team members.

The practice of using conference calls to regularly engage my sales team members in openly sharing successes and resolving challenges became a hallmark of my success at AT&T and ultimately resulted in opportunities to advance my career as a senior sales manager at MCI's Midwest Division and later as a General Manager and Vice President of Sales at the Midwest Division of U.S. Sprint Corporation.

It was during my time with US Sprint that I first became aware of the economic potential in founding a Conference Service Provider business. I witnessed first-hand the establishment of startup CSPs in the greater Chicago market. Then I was amazed to observe how quickly these startups grew from the utilization of just a few bundles of network connections to the use of some of the largest network connections available from US Sprint or any other licensed long distance carrier!

An unanticipated change in Sprint's management organization provided me with a unique opportunity to put my insights about the value and wealth creating potential of Conference Service Provisioning to practical use. I left Sprint in 1988 and obtained funding to start my first CSP business venture called Conference Plus Incorporated... a wholly owned subsidiary of Oswego, Illinois based Westell Corporation.

When the “dot com bubble” burst in 2002, I retired from Conference Plus and obtained a senior management position in a totally unrelated industry as required under terms of my Non-Compete Agreement with Westell. I immediately returned to the conference calling industry once this Agreement expired in October 2004 to found Two Rivers Conferencing.

TRC has found its niche as a highly skilled creator of strategic sales channel partnerships and acquirer of other successful Conference Service Providers.