Our Story

ComSonics is an employee owned corporation with roots stretching to the late 1960’s, when Dr. Warren Braun founded the company in the basement of his Harrisonburg, Virginia home. Dr. Braun had spent the prior thirty years in broadcast engineering and wanted to apply his knowledge and entrepreneurial spirit in the budding cable television industry. In the early days, the company was known as Warren Braun Consulting, and in 1972 incorporated under the unique name of ComSonics. “Com” representing communications and “Sonics” reflecting Dr. Braun’s early endeavors in audio design and installation.

In addition to Dr. Braun’s entrepreneurial and engineering fingerprint on the company, he pioneered employee ownership, and began transferring ownership to his employees in 1975. Dr. Braun would often say, “I believe in people. I’ve always believed in people”. He was a founding member of the Employee Stock Ownership Council of America as well as its inaugural president. He also authored, “On the Way to Employee Ownership”, which has been published in numerous languages worldwide and speaks to Dr. Braun’s experience transferring ComSonics’ ownership to its employees as an Employee Stock Ownership Plan (ESOP).

ComSonics is one of the oldest ESOP’s in the United States, having received numerous honors throughout the years. Earned awards include the 2010 ESOP Company of the Year, 22 Annual Awards for Communications Excellence (AACE), 2 Employee Ownership Month Poster awards, the Silver ESOP Award (25 years as an ESOP), and two of its employees (Keith Robertson in 2001, Markita Madden-Puckett in 2013) have been selected as National Employee Owner of the Year.

By 1972, ComSonics had carved out a growing repair niche for cable television electronics and begun a field engineering services arm offering cable plant design, troubleshooting, and proof of performance testing. In 1975, ComSonics developed the industry’s first RF leakage detector, Sniffer® I, giving system operators a tool for finding points of egress in their cable plants. This innovative product set the stage for other leading test instruments including the cable industry’s first signal level meter possessing a spectral display, the ComSonics Window® presented in 1985. Today the flame of innovation burns bright within the ComSonics QAM egress detection product line which, again, was the first of its kind when introduced in 2014. ComSonics has been awarded 27 intellectual patents for these and other revolutionary designs.

As ComSonics’ product business grew through innovation, its repair business grew into national prominence for quality electronics and fiber optics repair and refurbishment. By late 2001, ComSonics had expanded its repair to include depot operations in California, Indiana and Virginia, as well as a mobile fleet of laboratories providing onsite calibrations. In addition to cable electronics and fiber optics, ComSonics has been an authorized calibration and repair provider for public safety equipment (speed-detection) since 2011. In 2014, ComSonics became the cable industry’s first and only ISO 9001 certified repair company.

Our manufacturing facility, located in Weyers Cave, Virginia, opened its doors in 2003 in order to support our own growing test instrument business, and in recognition of the burgeoning demand for contract electronics services. ComSonics Manufacturing Solutions (CMS) provides state-of-the-art electronics manufacturing services including surface mount and through-hole board builds, BGA capability, full box build and fulfillment capabilities across multiple industries. Cable harness assembly manufacturer, Cable Connections of GA, was acquired in 2015 to further enhance and compliment ComSonics’ manufacturing offering. ComSonics’ manufacturing endeavors are ISO 9001:2008 certified, ITAR registered and SAM registered.

Thank you for taking the time to learn more about ComSonics’ 48 years as a world class design, manufacturing, sales, and repair solutions provider for electronics and fiber optics. Our employee owners proudly build products and provide services to the following industries; aerospace, cable/broadband, communications, computing, defense, medical, meteorology, public safety, power monitoring and rail.