The Straight Shooter

Ed Evans: Poster boy for continuing education, shutterbug-turned-businessman, seizer of rings of brass. Took Dobson from two-market carrier to eighth-largest wireless provider. Now CEO and part owner of interoperability solutions provider TSI. Playing for the love of the game.

I went to work for Nikon after college. I was a staff photographer, then I moved into sales. I realized early on that I wasn't going to make millions of dollars. Then they downsized.

My old boss was reading Popular Science one night and pointed to an article on cellular telephony. The next thing you know, I was a sales rep with GTE Mobilnet in Tampa. It was 1987.

I went from GTE to US Cellular to BellSouth. Odie Donald, president of BellSouth at the time, just about beat me with a wet noodle until I went back to grad school. That gave me the education I needed to understand the financial world, to be successful at Dobson and to acquire TSI.

Odie was a great mentor and did more to help my career than anyone I've worked for, before or since. Before him I was somebody who thought middle management — maybe someday getting to a VP level — would be a great opportunity. I was fortunate to have someone like Odie to follow.

Dobson Communications was the first opportunity I had to assume a high-end leadership position. I served on the CTIA board of directors and was a strong advocate of small carriers. Those five years gave me by far the greatest opportunity to effect change.

To Everett Dobson's credit, the day I walked in the door, he stopped worrying about the operations. Here's this guy whose grandfather started the company, and he's hiring me to be president. What were the real chances of him letting me do what needed to be done? That had to be an incredibly difficult thing.

It isn't money that keeps me motivated, but I have been fortunate enough to far exceed my expectations financially. I started off selling cellular telephones when StarTacs and flip phones were $5000 and airtime was 90¢ a minute. I just love this industry.

If I have learned anything in my career, it's that you go out and hire the best people you can, and you empower them to make decisions. You reward them when they do well. You have to be very direct. The worst thing is to have associates not doing what is expected of them and to not tell them. My greatest weakness — and my greatest asset — is my directness. I will tell people exactly what I'm thinking at any point in time — good, bad or indifferent. I got that from Odie.--As told to Tim McElligott