Celebrating 20 Years of Overnight Success at Mountain Leverage

In 2004, Alex Reneman stumbled upon a problem-solving technology and foresaw the impact that a focused business model could have on clients, his local community, and the industry at large. 

Today, that business celebrates its 20th anniversary of designing, implementing, and supporting the supply chain technology market’s leading voice solutions, while driving towards its overall mission of Life Elevated, Peak Performance.

How did Mountain Leverage become a 20-year overnight success?

Mountain Leverage’s Humble, Hilly Roots

Reneman was a young West Virginian, a recent U.S. Army veteran, and a chronic problem solver. 

“Growing up among neighborly and resourceful West Virginians, I learned to approach challenges with innovative thinking that puts people first,” Reneman reflected. “Rather than forming our company in a larger city or Silicon Valley-type location, I saw immense value in building Mountain Leverage in my home state. Our name reflects this very spirit…leveraging the grit, creativity, ingenuity, and community-mindedness of West Virginians to create solutions that make a difference to people worldwide.”

Building on his prior years of manufacturing, logistics, and enterprise systems consulting with Deloitte, Reneman learned about voice recognition technology’s application in the warehouse setting . He saw how voice for supply chain workflows such as picking, packing, putaway, and replenishment brought massive efficiency gains, streamlined training processes, and drastic accuracy improvements. 

He quickly plugged in with Vocollect, the original designer and supplier of voice technology for supply chain, which was later acquired by Intermec and ultimately by Honeywell. Reneman assembled several team members, including Dan Paul, who helped him develop custom Vocollect voice systems.

“We were engaged in voice solution design, development, testing, and implementations, as well as leading development training for other partners. We quickly became trusted experts in building voice solutions—so much so that Vocollect brought us into their New Ventures team to explore designing and building voice solutions for healthcare, enterprise systems, and WMS interfaces,” said Paul, whose current role at Mountain Leverage focuses on advocating for customer care and quality while still contributing to solution design. 

“The exciting thread throughout it all was that we knew there was a bigger opportunity here for Mountain Leverage, and we were starting to work our way into customer-facing solutions,” Paul stated.

Mountain Leverage had been formed – but it would continue to forge over the next decade.

Knocking on Doors, Finding Our Groove

Throughout those early years, Vocollect and more supply chain solutions partners realized Mountain Leverage’s in-house capabilities and brought the team along for start-to-finish services, like sales, design, implementation, and support for warehouses using voice technology all over the world.

“We’ve been remote since the beginning, but we were constantly traveling to customer sites together,” Paul continued. “Looking back, I can trace today’s Mountain Leverage mission, culture, and strategy to the way we handled ourselves, interacted with customers and partners, and approached solutions design even way back then. There’s always been a greater goal than just being another vendor.”

The growing Mountain Leverage team discovered that, while many vendors could sell voice devices, not as many could deliver a seamless implementation and complex systems integration. Reneman spent the next several years recruiting some of the industry’s most brilliant minds in voice architecture, warehouse blueprinting, and systems integration, in order to deliver more than just voice technology and software, but Peak Performance outcomes to customers spanning from Fortune 500 giants to smaller, independently-owned enterprises. supply chain customers.

The result? Many distribution centers that had not yet implemented voice, and even some that were using voice, were attracted to Mountain Leverage’s “white glove” touch between voice design, implementation, integration, and continuous support.

What really resonated with prospects and customers through those early years, though, was the people-first, P.A.C.T.-grounded approach of the driven and ambitious Mountain Leverage team.

“Even when we only had 10 employees, it was easy to see that the company Alex had put together was unique in its culture and also in its drive to provide only the highest quality service to customers,” said Katie Miller, a solutions architect at Mountain Leverage. “At that small size, we all had to wear many hats to get the job done. There was no ‘solutions architecture role;’ I was QA, trainer, designer, and technical writer, even giving the occasional assist in marketing!”

Expanding in the Market and Charting Our Path

One decade in, Mountain Leverage continued to partner with Honeywell, the Fortune 500 company that absorbed the Vocollect voice business, to expand market reach for voice. Reneman and the team expanded into European, Middle Eastern, and Asian markets and began designing their own software solutions to integrate with Honeywell’s voice offerings.

As Mountain Leverage grew and cemented its position as a market leader, it caught the attention of other logistics technology suppliers. This opened the door to strategic partnerships with companies like EPG Lydia, Berkshire Grey, Zebra Technologies, and other edge technology innovators, as well as numerous Warehouse Management Systems (WMS) and host system providers.

As the market evolved and new challenges emerged, Mountain Leverage identified a growing gap and addressed it with innovative solutions, including its flagship offering, Ascend™, a work orchestration connector that provides greater productivity and data visibility by translating WMS or any host system tasks into streamlined, optimized workflows for any user technology, any workflow application, and on premise or in the cloud.

“In growing, we haven’t sacrificed the high bar we set for our employees to be skilled, diligent, and always looking to serve the customer. And we haven’t sacrificed our company culture,” Miller shared. “Our growth has meant the ability to create our own products and increase offerings to our customers, and it’s satisfying to see our delivery and innovation put to use with happy customers who are achieving amazing results.”

When the pandemic hit in 2020, almost every office setting began working remotely and figuring that out – but Mountain Leverage had been 100% remote and geographically distributed since its beginning. The team was ready and poised to provide remote voice support and implementation services to the supply chain facilities that were now desperate to go live with cost-effective efficiency solutions amid pandemic disruption.

In 2021, Mountain Leverage acquired Speech Interface Design, the company’s closest competitor, bringing on a highly skilled voice team and an additional base of customers all over the country. The acquisition catalyzed Mountain Leverage’s market growth, brought on even more customers and channel partners, and, most importantly, united two highly skilled and driven teams to form the world’s most experienced team in the voice industry. Together, they now share in and exemplify a culture of Possibility, Accountability, Championship, and Trust – also known as the Mountain Leverage P.A.C.T.

The Flywheel Effect

Mountain Leverage’s customer base expanded across regions, applications, industries, partners, and edge technologies. The company now proudly serves and supports over 500 sites and over 30,000 voice users between multiple continents.

“These last few years have been a surreal whirlwind of the greatest innovative work we’ve ever been able to do, building the customer base and the internal team in number and breadth of skill, and watching the world around us realize the impact we’re making for our customers and our partners,” shared Norm Connors, a software developer and longtime exemplar of Mountain Leverage’s culture. 

“More importantly, though, is that our culture has held up through all of the growth. I feel at home here. At home with the work ethic, my workmates, the work environment, the work product, the work challenges, and our work goals.”

By putting people, community, and values before financial gains, Mountain Leverage’s commitment and culture have earned the trust of even more customers and partners – pushing the experiment that was Mountain Leverage into the industry’s spotlight.

Mountain Leverage has been awarded and recognized by several industry and regional networks for its excellence in delivery and partnership – “Partner of the Year” by Honeywell, “Top 100 Supply Chain Partner” by SupplyChainBrain, and “Solutions Provider Finalist” by the Pittsburgh Technology Council.

Demonstrating the company’s resonance with the general public, this year, Mountain Leverage was featured in the invite-only, educational public television docuseries, Viewpoint, hosted by actor Dennis Quaid, to explain the advancements of voice technology.

Remembering the Ultimate Goal

Today and every day at Mountain Leverage, though, is not ultimately about the fanfare, the headlines, or even the profit/loss sheet. Reneman’s mission since the very beginning was to elevate the lives of those around him, and every facet of Mountain Leverage’s customer delivery, partner engagements, and internal organizational structure points back to that mission – Life Elevated, Peak Performance.

“We unapologetically aim to make the lives of our team members and customers better because of their connection to us,” shared Julie Johnson, whose role at Mountain Leverage has spanned many aspects of the business over her 15 years and ultimately is summed up in her relentless advocacy for people and Mountain Leverage culture. “Even with significant expansion, these foundational principles continue to serve as our guiding star, ensuring our unique culture persists and that all associated with Mountain Leverage are truly flourishing.”

Unleash Tygart, the nonprofit arm of Mountain Leverage, aims to bring this focus of flourishing to the localized community of the company’s hometown in Grafton, West Virginia. With full support from the Mountain Leverage team, Reneman and the Unleash Tygart team are dedicated to solving several pillars of community needs.

“When we keep our eyes on the end goal of flourishing for all, we really can do what so many business advisors and experts have warned me over the years would not be possible,” Reneman said. “The experiment that was Mountain Leverage has proven that a successful, competitive, and highly innovative business can, in fact, do what’s absolutely right and best for the customer, the prospect, the partner, the employee, and the community, even at risk of financial or market gain, and that relational investment will pay off in dividends for all.”

What started as a small, young, zealous team of developers and consultants in 2004 has grown over the last twenty years into a poised, passionate, and diversified company that continues to innovate and deliver the highest quality voice solutions and workflow optimization services while elevating the lives of anyone – employees, customers, partners, community members, and more – who interacts with Mountain Leverage. 

On to twenty more years of Life Elevated, Peak Performance, for all!