| |
James Drake of Greenville hits home runs in the communications business
With an eye for communication opportunities, Drake's Delta companies are poised
for big growth
BY HUGH D. PALMER
Delta Business Journal
Speaking with James Drake of Greenville one gets the feeling that there is far more to
this polite individual than meets the eye. Drake has been hammering away at the paging
business for many years and is one of the ones if not the one who brought paging to the
Mississippi Delta after working on the first pilot paging program out in California.
Having to return home because of his mother's poor health, Drake brought the paging bug
with him. And, it has paid off not only for Drake, but for the Delta as well.
Drake began his career in Greenville at Modern Communications as a repairman working on
the two-way systems that the company sold to police departments, hospitals, farmers, and
others. Wanting to expand his abilities in the microwave communications industry, Drake
headed for California and landed a job at a company called ICS Beep Alert which, at the
time, was the largest paging company in the U.S. Drake stayed in Los Angeles for two years
and upon his return to Mississippi purchased an interest in Modern Communications. Not
long after his return, Drake bought out the other owners and became the sole owner.
"From there, we kept growing and expanding and growing and expanding," says
Drake. "This was the early eighties and we just bumped along for awhile specializing
in general communications. Back in those days the luxury of cellular phones didn't
exist."
While in California, Drake played a role in creating the first digital pager, one that
people still carry around today.
"After this experience, I got paging in my blood," laughs Drake.
With his experience in California in the paging business and after successfully operating
and expanding Modern Communications for several years, Drake felt it was time to bring
paging to the Delta and formed Delta Telepage in 1984, but kept it on the back burner for
some time. Serving only about 50 pagers, Drake began to put more time in the new business.
"I acquired another communications company over in Greenwood not long after this,
called Delta Communications, which was very similar to Modern Communications and I also
purchased a small paging company and both the paging companies and the communication
companies started to just take off," says Drake.
In 1986, Drake took on a partner from Jackson and started gobbling up small paging
companies around the state. Although paging was still in its infancy, it was beginning to
show signs that it was going to become a tremendous industry.
"We just bought and bought. Paging took off like wildfire back then and we were ready
for it. Today, for instance in North Mississippi we have over 15,000 pagers and I can't
even tell you how many we have down in Jackson and in that area," laughs Drake.
Drake has built a first class paging operation through hard work and planning. But he's
not through expanding as he plan to go into Memphis where he will soon be taking over the
nation wide control of Memphis.
"At Delta Telepage, we carry the traffic and we are the carrier for Metro Call and
TelTouch for all of North Mississippi," says Drake. "We provide the
transmitters, maintain them, and we are part of that network of communications
there."
After the North Mississippi network was established, Drake's partner asked him to come to
Jackson and help with a company he had just formed called, Value Page. Drake helped with
this company and it's mergers. He also worked with a company on the coast that was
undergoing a merger called American Mobile Phone.
Soon, Drake was inundated with calls for consulting work and to date his consulting work
has taken him all over the country and to even Central America.
"I think the future of the paging business is far from being tapped out," says
Drake. "Predictions are that 20 million more pagers will be in use by the year 2001
which means that there is a lot of room for growth.
"What you are seeing now are pagers being carried by teenagers, the moms of the
world, and just about everybody else. This entire business, Modern Communications, Delta
Telepage .. it's just a blast," says Drake who also owns a computer company that
services and maintains larger computer networks. "Modern Communications has grown to
where we now handle the service and maintain the communication system for the E911 system
for Washington County and several other counties here in the Delta as well as Grenada
Country."
Drake says that his company is the only one in the Delta that can offer nation-wide
service.
"If you have one of our pagers and you are in California or Washington, D.C. and
someone pages you from here in the Delta, you'll get that page," says Drake.
"We're able to page places that most paging companies dream of paging."
As for the future, Drake plans more acquisitions and says that his company will grow about
30% each year which is a big accomplishment in the paging industry.
"My biggest satisfaction is that we now have a very well-rounded communications
company where we are able to service the computer part of systems, take care of the
commercial two-way side, and take care of any of pager or data needs which puts us in a
pretty good driver's seat," says Drake.
|
