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Business View Magazine
NAV Industrial
The key to connectivity
NAV Industrial, a provider of cellular services to wire-
less companies throughout the southeastern United
States, began about 15 years ago in the garage, base-
ment, and pickup truck of J.D. Newsome. “I started out
with a 75 thousand dollar loan and a dream,” New-
some says, “and my trusty companion, a bull terrier
named Toby. And pretty soon, he became more fa-
mous than I was with all of our travelling.”
Armed with a degree in RF Communications and Fiber
Optics, Newsome says he recognized a niche market
for basic RF (Radio Frequency) infrastructure testing
in his part of the country, which involved sweep testing
and PIM (Passive Inter-Modulation) testing for some of
the area’s larger cellular carriers. “We built the busi-
ness from there,” he says. “And in less than a year’s
time we moved into a 4,500 square foot building with
12 employees. And two years after that, we moved into
a 25,000 square foot building with 42 employees.”
Today, NAV Industrial, which is based in Roanoke, VA,
has 35 employees who service the entire states of Vir-
ginia and West Virginia, western Pennsylvania, west-
ern Maryland, eastern Kentucky, and eastern North
Carolina. Its customers include Verizon Wireless, U.S.
Cellular, T-Mobile, nTelos, Sprint, and some local, pub-
lic service agencies, who all rely on the company to
keep their networks operating at optimum capacity
