Dr. Bing N. Sun, Ph.D. |
“Son, if you don’t study hard, you will not have enough food to eat.”
The son of a rice farmer, Dr. Bing N. Sun now owns a global telecommunications business that holds the top spot in the hotel guest room telephone market.
But it all began with very humble roots. One of the poorest families in a small rural village in China and from a large family of seven, Dr. Sun and his neighbors had never experienced life outside of the village. As a young boy, Dr. Sun’s family only had enough food for 9 months of the year. The other three months, they ate any food they could get their hands on – and sometimes, there was nothing to eat.
There was no time for play. At the age of eight, Dr. Sun started working in the rice fields earning less than a dollar per month. The first to arrive to school in the early morning, he would return home at 4 or 5 to work with his father in the fields. With no help from his parents, who could not read or write, the young Sun had all the cards against him, but he knew that if he played them right, he could make something of himself.
“His father advised him to study hard if he did not want to follow in the same footsteps in the rice fields, and he listened,” said John Grubb, Senior Vice President of Marketing, Cetis, Inc.
Working through the elements, the rain and cold, often late into the night with his father, he would return to his studies by oil lamp or candlelight, as they did not have electricity. This gave him a work ethic he would carry with him the rest of his life, even leading to heavy states of exhaustion.
Teachers gave him extra textbooks. During the cultural revolution in his middle school and high school years, many professors were sent to the countryside – and became his mentors. He received a high level of instruction and college level training, where otherwise he wouldn’t have been given the opportunity from attending school day in and day out. With these traveled mentors he was shown a world he otherwise would not have known growing up in the rice fields – a world he would later come to know on his own.
His insatiable desire for knowledge and study paid off. In his later years of high school, he was known to be so good at physics that his high school teacher called him "Doctor".
Sun soon earned acceptance to the top university in China, Peking University (now Beijing University), and graduated at age 19. As one of the premier students in the field of crystallography, he was later awarded a scholarship to pursue graduate studies in Europe, attending the University of Marseilles on a four-year scholarship from the French government. Never one to adhere to normal time schedules, Dr. Sun completed his Masters and Ph.D. degrees in record time; working in a lab until 2 or 3 in the morning after hours when school computers were available. This once brought him to exhaustion where he needed hospitalization to recover.
He earned both his Masters degree in Physics, and Ph.D. degree Materials Science and Engineering in just four years, at the age of 24. It was an eight year program.
After a post-doctorate fellowship in Geneva, Switzerland, the now Dr. Sun moved to the United States in 1990 as a scientist, first at the State University of New York at Buffalo, and then to the Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology at the University of Illinois, where he worked on various science projects including non-linear optical materials, biomaterials, dental materials, and specialty crystals.
After years of seeking funding for his research, he hit a plateau in the field, and felt that there was no future in science. He knew that to make a dent in the world he had to leave to pursue business. Preparing his transition from research to the business world, he read hundreds of books on how to run a business and spent hundreds of hours researching business principles -- product, pricing, distribution, and other marketing methods.
Building the Hotel Phones Business.
His first step into the business sector was as a consultant.
"I didn't have millions to start a business, so I went into the consulting business to sell knowledge," he says, “and I found there was a big demand for telephones."
He walked away from the academic world and never looked back.
Dr. Sun founded Scitec, Inc., short for Science Technology, as a custom manufacturing and consulting company. He studied and listened to industry-leading companies to find what products and services were in highest demand. When Sun noticed a growing market for low cost hotel phones, he quickly implemented a plan to design, manufacture and market phones, and Scitec launched its first industry standard 2500 telephone set under the Aegis® brand name in 1995.
He was up against stiff competition. The creator of the first guest room telephone, Teledex, boasted the highest phone sales with 15 million in 125 countries and was the most recognized, trusted, and preferred hospitality telephone brand in the world.
But the driven Sun was relentless, working double-shifts with the factory workers – sometimes working 20 hours per day. After several more months of careful observation in the lodging industry, it became apparent that Scitec’s 2500 hotel phones already accounted for a big slice of the market. Sun rolled out an economy version of the Aegis 2510D later that year, hoping to expand Scitec’s reach.
“Our goal was to capture all aspects of the lodging industry, so we released two new wall-mountable phones especially designed for bathrooms, hallways, and hotel lobbies, among other public areas,” Dr. Sun notes. Scitec introduced an industry standard 2554 and traditional 205T trimline set to the Aegis product line in 1996. Five more models followed suit the next year, completing a full line of hotel phones – and becoming an immediate hit in the marketplace.
Record growth for the company continued and Scitec marked 120% growth three years in a row. Never once having borrowed money from a financial institution, the company was poised to continue growth and expand to new markets, soon moving horizontally into government, education, residential, and small home/office markets.
In 2000 came the launch of Aegis 600 Series hotel phones with patented voice/data technologies that became patented. They also rolled out a Patient Room telephone for healthcare providers with such a low price point that it could serve as a disposable option for health facilities seeking to reduce patient cross-contamination risks.
Scitec was strategically positioned for telecommunications innovation and global sales, distribution and support, but a smaller company TeleMatrix was still a close competitor. In 2006, Sun bought and merged TeleMatrix and Scitec brands. Dr. Sun then looked to the next horizon. Luckily, he didn’t have to wait long. He acquired the assets of Teledex, LLC. of San Jose, California in 2009, and renamed the company Cetis in 2010 to accommodate and integration the Teledex, TeleMatrix, and Scitec brands.
The sun has risen high in the sky for Dr. Bing N. Sun. From humble roots in the rice fields of China to a corporation with global reach, the Cetis brand continues to set the design, engineering, and performance standards for the hospitality telephone industry. Today, Cetis channel partners have installed more than 30 million hotel phones at 100,000 locations globally. Cetis is headquartered in Colorado Springs, Colorado, and maintains office in Champaign Illinois, United Kingdom, Beijing, Dubai, and Mumbai.
The son of a rice farmer, Dr. Bing N. Sun now owns a global telecommunications business that holds the top spot in the hotel guest room telephone market.
But it all began with very humble roots. One of the poorest families in a small rural village in China and from a large family of seven, Dr. Sun and his neighbors had never experienced life outside of the village. As a young boy, Dr. Sun’s family only had enough food for 9 months of the year. The other three months, they ate any food they could get their hands on – and sometimes, there was nothing to eat.
There was no time for play. At the age of eight, Dr. Sun started working in the rice fields earning less than a dollar per month. The first to arrive to school in the early morning, he would return home at 4 or 5 to work with his father in the fields. With no help from his parents, who could not read or write, the young Sun had all the cards against him, but he knew that if he played them right, he could make something of himself.
“His father advised him to study hard if he did not want to follow in the same footsteps in the rice fields, and he listened,” said John Grubb, Senior Vice President of Marketing, Cetis, Inc.
Working through the elements, the rain and cold, often late into the night with his father, he would return to his studies by oil lamp or candlelight, as they did not have electricity. This gave him a work ethic he would carry with him the rest of his life, even leading to heavy states of exhaustion.
Teachers gave him extra textbooks. During the cultural revolution in his middle school and high school years, many professors were sent to the countryside – and became his mentors. He received a high level of instruction and college level training, where otherwise he wouldn’t have been given the opportunity from attending school day in and day out. With these traveled mentors he was shown a world he otherwise would not have known growing up in the rice fields – a world he would later come to know on his own.
His insatiable desire for knowledge and study paid off. In his later years of high school, he was known to be so good at physics that his high school teacher called him "Doctor".
Sun soon earned acceptance to the top university in China, Peking University (now Beijing University), and graduated at age 19. As one of the premier students in the field of crystallography, he was later awarded a scholarship to pursue graduate studies in Europe, attending the University of Marseilles on a four-year scholarship from the French government. Never one to adhere to normal time schedules, Dr. Sun completed his Masters and Ph.D. degrees in record time; working in a lab until 2 or 3 in the morning after hours when school computers were available. This once brought him to exhaustion where he needed hospitalization to recover.
He earned both his Masters degree in Physics, and Ph.D. degree Materials Science and Engineering in just four years, at the age of 24. It was an eight year program.
After a post-doctorate fellowship in Geneva, Switzerland, the now Dr. Sun moved to the United States in 1990 as a scientist, first at the State University of New York at Buffalo, and then to the Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology at the University of Illinois, where he worked on various science projects including non-linear optical materials, biomaterials, dental materials, and specialty crystals.
After years of seeking funding for his research, he hit a plateau in the field, and felt that there was no future in science. He knew that to make a dent in the world he had to leave to pursue business. Preparing his transition from research to the business world, he read hundreds of books on how to run a business and spent hundreds of hours researching business principles -- product, pricing, distribution, and other marketing methods.
Building the Hotel Phones Business.
His first step into the business sector was as a consultant.
"I didn't have millions to start a business, so I went into the consulting business to sell knowledge," he says, “and I found there was a big demand for telephones."
He walked away from the academic world and never looked back.
Dr. Sun founded Scitec, Inc., short for Science Technology, as a custom manufacturing and consulting company. He studied and listened to industry-leading companies to find what products and services were in highest demand. When Sun noticed a growing market for low cost hotel phones, he quickly implemented a plan to design, manufacture and market phones, and Scitec launched its first industry standard 2500 telephone set under the Aegis® brand name in 1995.
He was up against stiff competition. The creator of the first guest room telephone, Teledex, boasted the highest phone sales with 15 million in 125 countries and was the most recognized, trusted, and preferred hospitality telephone brand in the world.
But the driven Sun was relentless, working double-shifts with the factory workers – sometimes working 20 hours per day. After several more months of careful observation in the lodging industry, it became apparent that Scitec’s 2500 hotel phones already accounted for a big slice of the market. Sun rolled out an economy version of the Aegis 2510D later that year, hoping to expand Scitec’s reach.
“Our goal was to capture all aspects of the lodging industry, so we released two new wall-mountable phones especially designed for bathrooms, hallways, and hotel lobbies, among other public areas,” Dr. Sun notes. Scitec introduced an industry standard 2554 and traditional 205T trimline set to the Aegis product line in 1996. Five more models followed suit the next year, completing a full line of hotel phones – and becoming an immediate hit in the marketplace.
Record growth for the company continued and Scitec marked 120% growth three years in a row. Never once having borrowed money from a financial institution, the company was poised to continue growth and expand to new markets, soon moving horizontally into government, education, residential, and small home/office markets.
In 2000 came the launch of Aegis 600 Series hotel phones with patented voice/data technologies that became patented. They also rolled out a Patient Room telephone for healthcare providers with such a low price point that it could serve as a disposable option for health facilities seeking to reduce patient cross-contamination risks.
Scitec was strategically positioned for telecommunications innovation and global sales, distribution and support, but a smaller company TeleMatrix was still a close competitor. In 2006, Sun bought and merged TeleMatrix and Scitec brands. Dr. Sun then looked to the next horizon. Luckily, he didn’t have to wait long. He acquired the assets of Teledex, LLC. of San Jose, California in 2009, and renamed the company Cetis in 2010 to accommodate and integration the Teledex, TeleMatrix, and Scitec brands.
The sun has risen high in the sky for Dr. Bing N. Sun. From humble roots in the rice fields of China to a corporation with global reach, the Cetis brand continues to set the design, engineering, and performance standards for the hospitality telephone industry. Today, Cetis channel partners have installed more than 30 million hotel phones at 100,000 locations globally. Cetis is headquartered in Colorado Springs, Colorado, and maintains office in Champaign Illinois, United Kingdom, Beijing, Dubai, and Mumbai.
