Hello Inc.

What started out as a telephone answering service in 1923 has now grown into one of the largest message solutions companies in Virginia. Hello, Inc., a family-owned and operated business, began as a one-woman show when the bedridden Margaret Redmond Smith offered to answer calls for local doctors. With an old French-style telephone mounted on a scissors-type extension near her bed, she claimed to be one of the first telephone answering bureaus with "built-in" automation. She was indeed one of the pioneers of the answering service concept in the United States at that time.