About Locusta

Led by people who have built, operated, and improved consequential systems.

Locusta helps small and midsize organizations solve meaningful workflow, customer-experience, and digital-presence problems—through integrated human-and-agent teams from discovery through ongoing improvement.

Why Locusta exists

Stay close to the problem, the people, and the operating reality.

Locusta AI LLC is a Wisconsin-based software and services company led from Milwaukee and Columbus. We created it around a practical idea: organizations should be able to gain meaningful operating leverage from modern technology without assembling a large internal AI or software organization first.

Our founders bring experience from enterprise engineering, consulting, technology startups, public-sector technology leadership, and the day-to-day operation of small businesses. Persistent digital coworkers extend that experience with continuity, specialized roles, and the ability to keep improving a system after launch.

The founders

Accountability remains human.

The delivery team can scale across people and digital coworkers. Responsibility for priorities, judgment, commitments, and outcomes remains with the people leading the company.

President · Milwaukee

Jeffrey Zingsheim

Across more than three decades, Jeff has led complex engineering organizations and turned emerging technologies into products, platforms, and customer experiences across global enterprises, consulting engagements, and entrepreneurial ventures. He has led internationally distributed hardware, firmware, software, and systems teams; built modern customer-service platforms in highly regulated environments; and helped organizations connect technical decisions to commercial outcomes.

At Locusta, Jeff leads business operations, partnerships, and commercialization. He is also a co-founder of Iero, LLC, the company behind The Phonebooth, bringing firsthand experience building a new service across its public experience, operator workflows, and customer-facing mobile web application. He holds a master’s degree in Engineering Management and a bachelor’s degree in Computer Engineering from the Milwaukee School of Engineering.

View Jeff’s LinkedIn profile ↗

Chief Executive Officer · Columbus

David Lockstein, CETL

Dave brings more than 20 years of technology leadership in Wisconsin public education, including 16 years as Director of Technology across the Fall River and Montello school districts and his current role as Information Technology Supervisor for the Watertown Unified School District. That experience centers on making consequential systems reliable, supportable, understandable, and useful to the people who depend on them.

At Locusta, Dave leads product strategy, AI workflow design, business development, and technical direction. He is also a co-owner and licensed pilot with Wisconsin Aerial Drone Services and a co-founder of Iero, LLC, the company behind The Phonebooth, grounding Locusta’s work in businesses where field operations, customer experience, financial workflows, and technology have to function together.

View Dave’s LinkedIn profile ↗

Built from the inside

Some of our strongest proof comes from businesses we know as operators.

The Phonebooth and Wisconsin Aerial are founder-affiliated operating businesses. That relationship gives Locusta direct access to the business problem, the people doing the work, and the long-term consequences of product decisions.

We present those engagements as evidence of what we have designed, built, deployed, and continued to improve—not as independent third-party endorsements. Their value is the depth of operating evidence they provide.

Explore the case studies →

How the company is organized

Human leadership, extended by persistent digital coworkers.

Locusta’s digital coworkers maintain specialized roles, shared context, and continuity across research, design, software delivery, content, operations, and improvement. Humans define purpose, set authority boundaries, make consequential decisions, and remain accountable for what the company promises and delivers.

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