- July 19, 2025
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When Jeneth D’Alonzo was growing up in the Philippines, her mother worked as a servant for a wealthy family, trying to provide for her daughter so she could have an education.
“I came from nothing,” says D’Alonzo, who today is the CEO of DMSI, a fast-growing fiberoptic cable manufacturing company headquartered in Venice on the verge of potentially doubling its revenue in 2025. . And as CEO she makes it a point to give back to the more than 160 employees of DMSI, through everything from scholarships to company-sponsored trips.
"God gave me opportunity," D'Alonzo says. "So I always wanted to give that opportunity to others."
The struggle of coming from a third-world country provided “fuel” that got her where she is, according to D'Alonzo. She became an engineer and in 2007 moved to the United States to marry her husband, Jeff D’Alonzo, a fellow engineer who in 1996 had founded the manufacturing company Diversified Material Specialists Inc.
D'Alonzo was working in academia at Manatee Community College (now State College of Florida) and was juggling three jobs when her husband asked her to help out with DMSI on top of those. He was based on the floor of their home as she began her employment with the company, which has since experienced explosive growth and now operates facilities in both Venice and the Philippines.
DMSI manufactures fiberoptic cable assemblies, which are needed to transmit data, for clients ranging from Amazon to the federal government.
“We don't make the cable. We don't make the connector. We do the engineering and putting them together,” says D’Alonzo. “We don't make things the same over and over again. So that's really our expertise — products that we make are engineered, custom-made [and] geared to whatever technology or specification the customer” needs.
Just in the last year, the demand for its products and their complexity has skyrocketed, coinciding with the rise of artificial intelligence and hyperscale data centers, according to D’Alonzo.
DMSI’s biggest project was completed about a month ago, D’Alonzo says. It involved putting 864 fibers in one cable.
To meet demand, the company recently acquired a 7,000-square-foot space in Venice next to its 9,000-square-foot headquarters, and it is still looking to expand its footprint. This summer it will also launch a night shift.
In the past two months alone, DMSI has hired 15 to 18 employees, D’Alonzo says in a June interview in the company’s new manufacturing facility.
DMSI bought Suite 102 in the flex building at 105 Triple Diamond Blvd. for nearly $2 million in April. The spot is adjacent to its corporate headquarters in Suite 101.
“We've only been here for about seven weeks, and we already maximized the space,” D’Alonzo says. “We need more square footage. It’s just a bandage.”
The company employs 68 workers in the United States. It also has a facility in the Philippines with about 100 employees, D’Alonzo says.
DMSI is hoping to acquire more property nearby, rather than building a new location due to the time construction would require, according to D’Alonzo.
“That’s just because of the demand, and I don’t think it will stop,” D’Alonzo says, noting the company operates in what was a couple of years ago about a $50 billion to $70 billion industry.
“Now it’s going to [reach] $1 trillion in the next 10 years," D'Alonzo says. "The fiberoptic industry is not going to go anywhere — it’s in a very good position.”
Two years ago, D’Alonzo says, 90% of DMSI’s orders came from federal contracts. It has worked with agencies like the U.S. Air Force and Lockheed Martin. In the last year, that has changed as AI has exploded, she says, with commercial clients now accounting for 50% of the business.
“The reason it has changed is because we became an early adopter of a technology that is used for artificial intelligence,” D’Alonzo says, noting DMSI began supplying Nvidia chips, which were highly in demand for their graphics processing units. “That really changed our company.”
Now DMSI’s commercial clients include Amazon, Google, Meta and Microsoft, according to D’Alonzo, who estimates the company has more than 100 customers.
Customers have been coming on board for other reasons, too. In recent months, for example, DMSI has gained five to seven clients specifically due to tariffs, according to D’Alonzo. She says these are not just any customers but “billion-dollar companies” turning to the Venice manufacturer for its domestically sourced solutions.
“Tariffs are impacting our business in a very good way,” D’Alonzo says. “It helped us tremendously to gain more business and opportunities.”
While she declines to disclose revenue, D’Alonzo says: “We usually grow 25% every year. Looking at our numbers this year, I would not be shocked if we would double that growth.”
One challenge DMSI does not face is hiring — a counterintuitive problem, giving recruiting and retaining talent is usually a top-tier concern for CEOs. But DMSI, she says, does not even have to post jobs to fill them because employees know people who want to work there, D’Alonzo says.
“Our employees are our marketers,” she says. During a tour of the facility, the Business Observer met a handful of employees who were family members-turned-coworkers.
D’Alonzo describes DMSI as a “faith-based, family-oriented” company that takes care of its employees.
For its staff, DMSI provides free lunch on Fridays, awards, scholarships, a room for child care on-site, free summer camp and transportation for employees' children and a trip for workers and their families each year. Last year DMSI paid for a four-day cruise to the Caribbean for 47 people, D’Alonzo says.
The company has also employed high school students, some of whom have gone on to work at DMSI full-time.
“We have a very low turnover rate, and we really retain the talent,” D’Alonzo says.
To keep up with demand from large-scale data centers, DMSI is still hiring and adding a night shift starting in July, according to D’Alonzo, who is being deliberate about how she goes about it.
“I’m going to work hard to make sure we don’t lose the culture,” she says.
D’Alonzo and her husband are among three owners of DMSI. Her husband handles the finances; she oversees engineering plus research and development; and their business partner, Brandon Woodward, deals with marketing.
The company’s greatest challenge, she says, is the high demand combined with the lack of space to handle it.
By the end of the year, D’Alonzo says she would like to see “another space that we can acquire” and the night shift grow from one production line to three. That would require adding another 20 people, she says.
In addition to market forces, D’Alonzo credits her employees with DMSI’s current success.
“I don’t think DMSI would be here without the support of our employees. We have great people,” D’Alonzo says. “That's why we can make things so fast, because I have a great team with talent and skills and character, and they believe in our dream. And I always tell them that my dream is not only mine, but yours.”
