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Logical Operations started more than 30 years ago as an information technology training firm and went through several ownership changes and names along the way.
The Henrietta-based firm develops and publishes instructor-led training courseware. Business workers and government employees are among the customers who participate in the mainly technical-related training.
Company CEO Bill Rosenthal stresses the "instructor-led" aspect of Logical Operations. In fact, that's why he got back into the business after retiring.
The business, under different names, began leaning more and more toward e-learning, or machine-driven learning. Rosenthal, who started with Logical Operations in 1987, recognized a need to go back to how things had started.
"Many people thought of instructor-led training as dying as e-learning was exploding, but I said, uh-uh, I see it as a business destined to grow," Rosenthal said.
The touted benefits for e-learning have always been its speed and low cost. But the approach lacks the back-and-forth benefits of traditional teacher/student learning, Rosenthal said.
Technological advances like the iPad have made it possible for that kind of interaction in "real time" even when the instructor might be halfway around the world from his or her students. As Rosenthal is fond of saying, "90 percent of the people 90 percent of the time" prefer learning from a "live" person, and that's where Logical Operations comes in.
The company offers more than 4,600 in-house training products, from software packages to printed course material to classes taught online, virtually or in person in the training center of Logical Operations' Winton Place offices. What they don't offer is e-learning.
"We do publish 'hard-copy' books, and digital delivery now comprises one-third of our business," he said. "Both can coexist very happily in the world. I don't believe the physical act of holding a book and reading it is going to go away anytime soon. Here we are 700 years later after the invention of the printing press, and people still like to hold books."
Logical Operations was founded in 1982 by two professors from Rochester Institute of Technology. The business began simply enough in rooms in the Strathallan Hotel on East Avenue.
In 1991, the company was sold to Ziff-Davis, a New York City-based firm. In 1994, the name was changed to Ziff-Davis Education and e-learning was introduced.
Ziff-Davis Education was sold in 2000 to an investment firm which renamed the company Element K. A New Hampshire firm named SkillSoft Corp. acquired Element K in 2011. Rosenthal, who had left the company, bought the publishing end of the business in 2012 and renamed it with the original sobriquet, Logical Operations.
That corporate shuffling is why Rosenthal also is fond of calling Logical Operations a "30-year-old start-up. Our roots trace back 30 years, but we act like a start-up."
Customers (or students) typically take courses that last one to five days to learn about topics including cyber security, using Excel or computer-support technology.
The company has continued to grow, including the recent purchases of the Rochester franchise of an IT training company and a textbook and study-guide printer. Logical Operations was named to the Democrat and Chronicle's 2015 "Top Workplaces" list, an honor Rosenthal cherishes.
"We have a long history of great products and of thinking of our employees," he said. "Our most valuable assets walk out the door every day and return voluntarily."
Logical Operations
Founded: 1982.
Location: Headquarters at 3535 Winton Place, Henrietta; other offices are in London, Singapore and Shanghai, China.
Executives: Bill Rosenthal, CEO.
Employees: 100 (70 locally).
Website:www.logicaloperations.com.
