In the late 1980’s Jon Gross was a salesman for a plumbing supply company but played with computers in his basement. As a hobby (referred to by his wife as “the mistress”) he started a dial in bulletin board called Jon’s Bus Stop. It was related to educational issues in Manchester a subject Jon was fond of since he had two young children entering the system and a wife who was an educator. With the
advent of the internet, Jon’s board became very popular and expanded to over 20 phone lines – all originating at his home in east Manchester off Candia Road. A childhood best friend, who’s background was in radio station management fell in love with the online service. Moving up from Attleboro, Massachusetts, Ed Lennon invested into Jon’s hobby and GroLen (Gross/Lennon) was born. A small shared office in the basement of 814 Elm Street became home for Manchester’s first internet provider. Ed & Jon decided to address many of the public’s computer needs, assembling computers with the hiring of a computer sales person from Sears, Frank Durham in 1994. An educational schoolhouse and Web/Networking departments followed. With the boom of the internet in the mid 1990’s, GroLen Communications also expanded – with stores on Louden Road in Concord and Lafayette Road in Portsmouth. The small office grew to two complete floors of the building at 814 Elm Street. Customer service for the internet, computer production, web site development and software education were all focal points. GroLen was recognized statewide and nationally and was the choice of many for their computer needs. The first web sites for The Union Leader and Manchester Police Department were projects GroLen was proudly involved in. The first computer systems delivered to The Manchester School District were GroLen products. GroLen was the first local service to bring election result live online and at our peak – our advertising budget and reach was extensive. GroLen shot many man on the street commercials, were in print everywhere and even shot a commercial on film at Panaflex Studios in California that was aired during Monday night football on ABC. The catchy “GroLen’s Got It” theme may be one that you may remember with the Grolen, Grolen, Grolen, jingle. The late 90’s had GroLen producing thousands of computers annually, thousands of dial-up computer customer state wide and employing many in the field. With the downturn and bust of the .dotcoms at the turn of the millennium and the end of the computer upgrade surge brought on by Y2K it was time for GroLen to downsize or face the extinction that many computer companies faced during those trying times. GroLen decided to become more efficient and to concentrate on computer repair, network integration and service. Concord, Portsmouth and the school house closed. Only the most proficient employees remained and GroLen retooled itself into becoming truly the area’s most expert at troubleshooting computer problems, protecting and removing spyware and basic affordable web page development and hosting. Unlike the big box stores of today, GroLen concentrates on computer repair with expert technicians and diagnostic tools. We also have flat rate in shop services. This way you know what your repair will cost no matter how long or difficult it may be (some exceptions but 98% of what we do fits one of our two flat level repairs). In 22 years of serving the local community we have seen many competitors come and go. Some lured customers with low "hourly rates" but the repairs took multiple hours or the work was sub-par and the amount spent was no savings – so many returned to us. We have remained consistent, capable, professional and that has been the key to our longevity. Find out about us by dropping by 814 Elm Street at any time – even to just talk "shop".
