Bossier City’s CellXion Tower of Power in Cellular
Published Mar 11, 2008
You don’t climb to the summit of an industry overnight, but CellXion’s rise in the cellular phone industry was uncommonly fast.
Now the leading producer in its industrial niche, CellXion (pronounced “selection”) provides turnkey construction of towers, communications equipment and shelters that house the equipment. Conceived in 1996, the Bossier City business began production two years later and has mushroomed to 500 employees.
Most of them work at CellXion’s 400,000-square-foot headquarters spanning three buildings. The 2003 addition of a 75,000-square-foot clean room for “immaculate” radio equipment assembly gave the company a decided edge, says Gary Todd, CellXion vice president.
“For the customer, you get the clean room environment so their equipment is installed in a secure environment and a clean one,” he says. “We’re doing it all under one roof, and we can get the installation done much quicker.”
Shelters are yoked to radio equipment in a climate-controlled environment. Then, the completed assembly moves next door to 30,000 square feet of inventory space, where CellXion stores $35 million to $40 million worth of equipment on a given day.
For customers that include the pantheon of the cellular phone industry, the company also ships towers that sprawl over two semi-trailers.
CellXion fulfills exclusive contracts for Alltel and U.S. Cellular, and counts Cingular/AT&T, Nextel, Verizon and T-Mobile among its customers.
The company’s selection of Northwest Louisiana for headquarters and assembly operations stems from Chief Executive Officer Steve Schoonover, Chief Operations Officer Charlotte Wingfield and Todd having much more than just a passing familiarity with the region.
“We did know we had an experienced labor force here,” Todd says. “It certainly didn’t hurt that we were from the area, but we looked at other locations across the country. We found a very favorable climate here, and the local government worked with us extensively.”
CellXion forecasts continued growth in the cellular industry that makes up nearly 90 percent of its business. “That’s where we’re investing our dollars,” Todd says. “We still feel like the industry has a ways to go. We’re actually on a hiring upturn.”
Story by Gary Perilloux
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