Business View Magazine - October 2018

70 71 ing to provide professional services – all in, and around, the tower modification business.” Reese explains that, in addition to the public’s aversion to poles going up everywhere, its ev- er-increasing demand for more data usage has made tower modification absolutely necessary. “When cell sites and the original cell systems were designed, they were designed for voice calls,” he states. “You can move a lot of voice calls on a network, but when you’re watching Netflix movies all night long, you’re pumping a lot of data through. Today, nobody cares about minutes, and nobody cares about texts, but all the data they use strains the systems and requires carriers to do antenna change outs, and, in many cases, the antenna sizes go up, which in turn, creates more load on the structures, which then requires us to modify the structures to meet their structur- al demands. “So, we will go in and look at structures from a feasibility standpoint before they’re modified, and then we come alongside while they’re doing the work. On a percentage basis, our highest product line in terms of volume is certified weld inspec- tions, as well as non-destructive examinations –methods which examine welds and check for quality and structural adequacy of the welds. This is a significant amount of our work. “We work in the telecom industry; we work in sports lighting, where we will do similar inves- tigations, for example the lights at your high school football field– the structural adequacy of those light supports.We also do work for the broadcast industry.We typically find ourselves REESE TOWER SERVICES, INC. nicely entrenched in the area where we are pro- viding professional services in the field, as well as providing our deliverables to engineers who either don’t have the ability to do what we do, or no interest to do what we do. But we have an understanding of what engineers want and need. We’re very careful with the quality of the data and information that’s obtained before we turn it over to engineers. It’s a big challenge in our industry; if you send somebody out to collect data, they don’t always know how it’s going to be used at the end. And if you don’t know what you’re doing, it’s very easy to obtain incorrect information.” While RTS only has four employees, Reese maintains that the company actually has a na- tional footprint, because he has the ability to call on a nationwide network of subcontractors. ” In addition to what we self-perform, over the last eight or nine years, I have developed an out- source network, where we will subcontract the labor,” he says. “But, it’s very specialized; they’re certified weld inspectors and they have ASNT Level 2 credentials in both magnetic particle and ultrasonic testing techniques. So, it’s a very unique group of approximately 40-45 guys. And they’re all strategically located–Atlanta, Los Angeles, Louisville, Denver, New England, Nashville, Hous-