Despite being twins, Brent and Brian Ford took very different paths in life before coming together to form their own company, FordCom Wireless.
Brian went to college after high school, graduated with a business degree, and worked in the corporate world. Brent started climbing towers right out of high school, and worked his way up the ladder to crew leader, construction manager, and finally project manager. He built hundreds of cell tower sites from the ground up. So while they had different paths, both had a shared work ethic and desire to lead.
“Although we had different paths, we are a lot alike,” Brian told Inside Towers. “Brent has a hustle that has driven him to excel in the field, sometimes working 20 hour days. I’ve had great business preparation in leading and scaling businesses in the telecom and data software industries. That marriage of operations and vision were the reason we knew we would be successful from the start,” recalls Brian.
A Company is Born
In 2018, the brothers brought their skill sets together to form FordCom Tower Service LLC, now known as FordCom Wireless. The company specializes in tower and civil construction on cellular tower sites. The company’s headquarters is in the brothers’ hometown of East Palestine, OH. It sits between two major cities: Pittsburgh (home of the Steelers – Brent’s team) and Cleveland (home of the Browns – Brian’s team).
Brian leads sales and administration as the Chief Executive Officer, and Brent heads up field operations as the Chief Operations Officer. “It’s a natural fit for our complementary strengths and we both like to stay in our lanes,” Brent said.
Since its inception, FordCom has grown quickly. In four years, it has expanded to 50 employees and has added an office in Plain City, OH. That new office allows them to service the Columbus, Cincinnati, and Dayton markets within a 70-mile radius.
“There are a lot of companies in this industry whose crews are out of town for weeks at a time,” Brian said. “We will not do that. We think the burnout rates are too high. To us, family is number one. Our strategic locations allow our people to be home for dinner more than our competitors.”
FordCom Wireless partners with the Learning Alliance Corporation in recruiting military veterans. Once hired, new employees go through a comprehensive apprenticeship program with a mentor that enables them to track their progress. An internal safety director goes through the program with the recruits, ensuring their success. When climbers rise through the ranks of the program, they receive additional compensation and responsibilities, including becoming mentors themselves. “We are appreciative of our military and happy to have a career path for our vets who have an interest in the industry”, Brent says.
Brian and Brent are focused on managing the company’s crews and taking care of them like an extension of their own family. FordCom Wireless provides its personnel career opportunities with horizontal and vertical mobility.
“It’s a people business,” Brian said. “They need to feel that they are valued and to know that what we are trying to build is bigger and better than just a paycheck.”
FordCom runs with five man tower crews instead of four like most tower companies, which provides additional staffing flexibility. “If you want to take a vacation day, you can take a vacation day; we’re not going to miss a beat,” Brian said. Brent added “With that flexibility our customers know that we will always meet their expectations.”
Tower Services and Beyond
FordCom’s main focus is traditional line and antenna work, decommissioning existing equipment, new site builds, and modifications. Additionally, the company provides civil and electrical work on cellular tower sites.
The company’s next area of focus will be to train its six civil crews with the expertise needed to deploy small cells, and outfit the workforce with bucket trucks.
“We have done some small cell work in the past, but we will be putting more of an emphasis on small cells in the future,” Brian said. “From a business unit perspective, I think small cells are the most attractive long term investment for us. That is a priority in our growth plan.”
Brent and Brian both believe in constantly adjusting to meet the daily challenges of tower work with an eye on where they want the company to be in three to five years. One way they are looking ahead is in their branding. The transition from FordCom Tower Services to FordCom Wireless represents new opportunities beyond towers.
“Turning points are continual,” he said. “While our core foundational principles remain, we need to be constantly evolving and taking the long view in an ever-changing environment.” Within the next five to eight years, FordCom envisions expanding to more locations in the southeast.
In the four years that FordCom has been in business, Brian and Brent have turned their fraternal bond into a successful business partnership, working and learning together to guide a fast-growing wireless construction company. There is however one thing they will never agree on: Brian is all Browns and Brent is all Steelers.
To learn more about FordCom Wireless, visit https://fordcomts.com/. They can also be found on Facebook, and LinkedIn, or you can email them directly at [email protected] or [email protected].
By J. Sharpe Smith, Inside Towers Technology Editor
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