Cascade was founded by Gururaj Deshpande in 1990, and was led by CEO Dan Smith, VP of Sales Mike Champa and CFO Paul Blondin.

[1] Cascade made a compact Frame Relay and Asynchronous Transfer Mode communication switches that were sold to telecommunication service providers worldwide.

Ascend was later acquired by Lucent Technologies in 1999 in one of the largest mergers in communications equipment history (US $24 Billion).

[citation needed] Both Desh Deshpande and CEO Dan Smith profited handsomely from the acquisition, as did hundreds of Cascade employees.

Cascade alumni were founders or key contributors to many other financially successful Boston area telecom companies in the late 1990s.