TeleVox founder and former Chief Executive Neil Armentrout spoke to University of South Alabama Mitchell College of Business students recently as part of the RBC Bank Distinguished Lecture Series. His talk was titled, “The Televox Story.”

Armentrout received his undergraduate degree in finance from USA in 1981 and his Master’s of Business Administration from USA in 1983. He is coming back to campus through the RBC Bank Distinguished Lecture Series, the first lectureship at the Mitchell College of Business. The bank covers the costs of two annual lectures from business or community leaders on a variety of topics. The program is now in its third year.

Armentrout and his wife, Fran, founded TeleVox Software in Mobile in 1992 and sold the company to the West Corporation in 2007.  During these 15 years, they grew TeleVox from a start-up to a 275-person company with worldwide product distribution. TeleVox received many Mobile Chamber of Commerce awards and was named the Alabama Information Technology Association (AITA) Company of the Year in 2005.

Prior to founding TeleVox, Armentrout served as senior vice president of marketing at QMS, Inc. A Mobile-based company, QMS was a $300 million publicly traded enterprise that was the largest independent supplier of non-impact computer printers at the time. While at QMS, Armentrout served as president of The Laser Connection, a Mobile-based company that provided laser printer enhancement products and accessories.  As co-founder of this company, Armentrout saw annual revenues grow to over $64 million.