Twilite Tech Center open to all comers in Great Falls

A Great Falls developer hopes babies’ first birthday parties will be as common in his new video-conferencing studio as long-distance business meetings.

By JO DEE BLACK
Tribune Staff Writer

The Twilite Technology Center & Café, a unique combination of hi-tech equipment in a relaxed, comfortable setting, is designed to handle both types of events.

"I wanted to find a way to take technology from the commercial world to the personal world," said Cees Holcombe, the center’s owner.

The Twilite offers video-conferencing, a recording studio, a convention center for up to 120 people and rental time on computers with high-speed Internet access, along with a cozy coffee bar, a café and a patio with a great view of the Missouri River.

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About the business

# Twilite Technology Center & Café 207 Smelter Ave. N.E., Suite 7 Great Falls

# Open 7 a.m. to 10 p.m. Mondays through Saturdays and 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Sundays

# Phone: 216-5500

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Holcombe is one of the original investors in the Twilite Center, a development project that transformed the former Twilite Theater building and surrounding area into a diverse business development along Smelter Avenue.

Original plans included a video-conferencing center as a benefit for tenants. Video conferencing allows people in different places to see and talk to each other by transmitting videos being shot in each location. Interactive video-conferencing requires that all parties have access to a studio.

It’s a practical application for businesses, but as plans developed, Holcombe said he recognized other opportunities to use the technology.

The Twilite Technology Center allows events, such as wedding receptions, to be recorded to a DVD or on video, using the video-conferencing cameras. The cameras also can be used to stream events over the Internet as they are happening.

"With the Air Force base here, I got to thinking, wouldn’t it be great for Grandma and Grandpa back East to see baby’s first birthday party as it is happening," Holcombe explained.

The Twilite Technology Center offers a variety of rooms where taping can take place: a small private room with a conference table and chairs suitable for events such as legal depositions; a classroom-style room with eight individual computers and a large computer screen overhead in the middle of the room; and the conference room.

Holcombe uses the classroom-style room to teach beginning computer classes and real estate classes and will rent the facility for other classes.

"I don’t really need to see my real estate students, but they can see me when my classes are streamed over the Internet and call in with questions on a conference line," he said.

The Noon Rotary Club held a recent lunch meeting at the Twilite Technology Center, which included a tour.

"Our members are from diverse backgrounds and I think many of them can use an alternative to studio-to-studio video conferencing, which is expensive," said the club’s president, Eric Burger.

Burger, the director of the Great Falls Rescue Mission, is looking at using the Twilite Technology Center to offer training for rural pastors who at times deal with homeless people at their doorsteps.

"The thing that really intrigued me though is how this can be used for family events, such as birthday parties," Burger said. "Those are the neat things."

That’s Holcombe’s soft spot too.

"The other night we had a lady come in to rent computer time to watch her brother in a trotting horse race in Toronto," he said. "We put the race up on the big screen and we all watched it. Those are the ways this technology can be brought into the personal world."

http://www.greatfallstribune.com/news/stories/20030917/localnews/274408.html