When Jarrett Wolfe decided to open a new regional office for his national telecommunications business, he settled on St. Petersburg as the ideal location.
It was, he’s 100 percent sure, a smart choice.
Wolfe is the founder and Managing Partner of SmartChoice LLC, which provides voice and data, security, software, infrastructure and support to businesses across America, in Canada and internationally. SmartChoice is a global, award-winning Cloud Solutions provider.
Its other offices are in New York City – Wolfe’s home turf – and in Springfield, Missouri. The former because it’s still the center of the business universe, and the latter because it’s centrally-located, halfway across the United States and closer to the west coast. Springfield also services the company’s Canadian clients.
Wolfe moved his own office, and his family, to St. Petersburg in 2021. One of the company’s first clients was the St. Petersburg Area Chamber of Commerce, which was in dire need of communications upgrades and support.
SmartChoice staff members were introduced to the Economic Development Corp., Tampa Bay Tech and the Downtown Partnership. “Within a short time,” Wolfe recalled, “this whole city, and Pinellas County, had taken our entire company under their wings.
“And there’s no door that has been shut in front of us. We’ve been able to meet some of the biggest influencers here, who have said ‘Can you help us here? Can you help us there?’”
EDC President and CEO Mike Swesey said SmartChoice is the textbook example of a major urban tech company moving seamlessly into the fabric and the flow of business in St. Petersburg to facilitate growth.
The balmy climate didn’t hurt. The “small-town feel” and the friendly populace helped.
“There’s not one reason that companies would choose to come to St. Petersburg,” Swesey said, “but there’s a whole laundry list of benefits to doing business in Florida, and specifically in our city.”
SmartChoice, he added, has “really come in and learned the business community, and gotten involved in it. And they have definitely invested in multiple nonprofits throughout the community.”
The company actively supports Gulf Coast Jewish Family and Community Services, SPCA Tampa Bay, CASA Pinellas: Pinellas County Domestic Violence Support and Hope Villages.
Since SmartChoice is all about connectivity, this makes perfect sense to Jarrett Wolfe.
“I don’t really look at is as me choosing St. Petersburg,” he explained. “I think St. Petersburg chose me.
“I’ve applied to many clubs where I didn’t get in. This club has said to me, they want me to be here. They want our company to be here. They want us to grow here. They want us to prosper here. They want us to help the community here.
“We just followed the St. Petersburg lead that’s available to anyone that wants it.”
It was the early 1990s. Wolfe was in New York, working sales for AT&T, just as cell phones were becoming a thing. Everyone realized – all at the same time, he said – that Microsoft, not MCI, not Sprint, not Nextel, was going to be the competitor to beat moving into the new millennium. “That’s really where my eyes lit up.” The future of communications was the internet.
Soon he was working for a company called Net 2000, and left in 1998 to begin what was initially known as SmartChoice Communications.
Today, 85 percent of its clients are headquartered in New York, and have multiple locations around North America. “Some of the largest luxury-brand retailers in the world use us,” Wolfe said. “Some of the largest construction companies in the world. Law firms. We’re really big in financial as well.”
The Springfield call center opened in 2012.
Wolfe was in Florida, setting up a communications system for an US Eye (with 80 locations across the country), when the company’s CTO lamented that there was no one in this part of Florida that did the precise work that SmartChoice did.
Wolfe was sensitive to such lightbulb moments. After operating out of a temporary office at the Thrive DTSP co-working center, he bought a home and moved his wife and two children to St. Pete.
“We didn’t meet one neighbor, or make one friend, in our apartment building in Long Island,” he recalled.
“As soon as we moved here, neighbors just started knocking on our door, bringing gifts. And it’s been the same exact way with the business here. The people in this area are just so special. In New York, we don’t even get a wave in the elevator.”
SmartChoice’s St. Pete staff is now up to 14. “And we’re hiring more people; the talent pool has been great. Which is helping us expand down here.”
The company’s locally-based client list includes Richemont (the parent company of Cartier and Van Cleef & Arpels), Ernest Health, Diptyqu, Hurley, Byredo, Dragados Construction and more.
A project to strengthen and improve WiFi service at the St. Pete Pier is in talks.
Business, of course, is business, but Wolfe believes that being a good neighbor – by supporting nonprofits and working with other local companies – is good business, too.
“We are building this office from a sales perspective, a marketing perspective, a sales perspective,” he said. “Although we are going to continue to grow New York and Missouri – they’re the roots of our business, and we have great employees there. We want them to feel secure.
“Eventually, as their personal lives evolve, we hope they’ll want to come down here and have the life that we’ve been able to build down here. Although we’re not going to force them to come!
“I feel that they’d be a lot happier. Because I just have a glow on my face every day.”
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