By Eleanor Snite
David Boeff has a passion for the tower industry. “It’s not just about the money,” the CEO of NexTower, located in Northwestern St. Johns County in Florida, said. “You build a lot of good relationships, it’s a very, very niche industry.” Boeff started out in the industry in the days of two-way radios and pagers working for Motorola and was there for 18 years. In 1994 he founded Gator Tower Management, and three years later he left to work for TowerCom. During his time at TowerCom he was an equity partner and held the position of vice president, executive vice president and then CEO. In February of this year, he left TowerCom and started his own company, NexTower. “I was fat, dumb and happy at TowerCom, they were good to me,” Boeff said. “But I wanted something new, I wanted my own company. I was an entrepreneur, and I didn’t know it.” Boeff said his relationship with TowerCom is still good, and he’s even working on some projects with them.
Over the 36 years he has been in the industry, Boeff has worked with many subcontractors. When he finds good ones, he locks on to them and has an extensive network of service providers available. When he left TowerCom in February, Boeff hit the ground running. He is currently pursuing eight new builds, including the fast-growing Nocatee area in Northeast Florida. He has letters of intent for buying four towers, is negotiating five ground leases and has agreements with seven condo building rooftops. All together, Boeff estimates he is working on a total of 50 projects. NexTower’s focus is on Florida and Atlanta for now and he is looking to add experienced project management personnel. But Boeff is building his vendor relationships to extend NexTower’s reach nationally. In five years, he expects to have $5 million annual cash flow making the company valued in excess of $100M. “I have a good reputation in the tower industry and am extremely thankful for that,” Boeff said. “I want to grow but never want to lose that. I always want to be knowledgeable about each tower – able to tell its story to you.”