05/30/2025
1984 Allen Whitwood - Severna Park Engineering office, Latest in Technology (Instant contacts app on desk, Ergonomic desk chair and guest chair, Freestanding 2x4 desk area, and quick cleaning tool for fridge- shovel. Latest in office decor = Full system map overlay on our brand-new modern wall (we hide the parts of the system we don't like behind a bunch of wood), state of the art networking system complete with wall fish and hidden on the side of the fridge above the fridge cleaning shovel. Our state-of-the-art filing system leads to less clutter. All these updates helped up grow and prosper.
Now let me say with all KIDDING aside, we struggled. We struggled to keep the system running — outages daily, mostly from our small headend that was in a building the size of a shed in Brooklyn, with mice eating wires, the air conditioner in the wall cutting out, or our equipment overheating.
Our warehouse had most of the inventory on the floor in boxes and our display case (I think it came from a jewelry store). At least when we got to Millersville, we built a few shelves to go along with our display case that held our small parts.
We did have a pallet jack that our guys rode like a skateboard while trying to jump the steel ramp with it. We only had 4 or 5 vans that we couldn’t keep running. We had our one bucket truck (with a “field office” sign in the window). And our pride and joy was our red van — the 'URBAN ASSAULT VEHICLE' — complete with a heat-shrink gear shift. (It was a sad day when she died in an alley in Brooklyn, but at least she went peacefully.)
Every day in Severna Park we struggled and somehow kept the business going. We were even bouncing paychecks to our people.
We got lucky when we won our court case against the bank (Our bank lent money to our competitors to try to put us out of business).
When we got to Millersville, times were still tough. Even then, we were struggling. The power would go out in the summer, so no phones. We still didn’t have the money to fully operate. We were giving installers 50 fittings in baggies just to keep installs going. We were jumping our vans daily. We were even painting the numbers back on converter dials with white-out.
And all the while, well, there was Jones Intercable.
We decided as a team — even against the odds (Jones was the 13th largest MSO and we were number 89) — we would NOT concede and we were going to start selling service.
We made promises to our customers and whatever it took, we kept them. We raised our prices from $6.50 a month to $8.90. We refined our lineup (got rid of the PTL — BTW, only 3 complaints when we dropped PTL and added HSN).
Every month we took our revenue from HSN and bought a new van. We even put generators in them so when the power went out at the office, we could run the phone switch by putting an extension cord through the window.
We finally had enough working capital to install a propane generator to keep the headend and office running. We put money back into the system with status monitoring.
We were confident enough to raise our price to $9.90 a month. We got as much co-op as we could from HBO, Showtime, and the other channels. Then we started training our team. Everyone worked to help each other.
We had “Field-Day” where each CSR spent a day with an installer, another day with a service tech. Some even went out with the construction crews. We even had the money to buy them lunch for the day.
Our philosophy changed — from selling cable TV to simply selling service. Our word meant everything to us and our customers.
We promised the Ace of Clubs they would have cable for Thanksgiving. Then the county denied our permit to go down Fort Smallwood Road.
Well, that didn’t stop us — we got private property agreements from every single property along Fort Smallwood Road to get us to the Ace of Clubs. Then, on Thanksgiving Eve at 9:00 PM, a torrential rainstorm soaked all eleven of us. Soaked and proud, at 9:15 PM, we turned on the TV at the Ace of Clubs and kept our promise.
We came up with our famous “Buck Deal” to add customers. We sent our sales reps out with briefcases handcuffed to their wrists. The briefcases were marked “Secret Cable TV Stuff,” and inside was $10,000 worth of Funny Money.
We started turning a profit and expanded our office space. Every time we went to do something, Jones was there trying to beat us to the punch.
We built our plant fast to reach Maryland City, and thought we beat you, Jonesy — then the bastards drove by with a headend on the back of a flatbed truck and beat us to the customers. That was the last straw.
We mapped out a battle plan for $30,000. We picked Newcut Farms. Jones had 53% pe*******on there. Investing in that was a BIG risk. We said our service and our people were just better — enter the day of the Overbuild.
We went in and took 52 of Jones’ 53 customers, then added 37 new customers for a total of 89% pe*******on in an overbuild area. And we kept those customers.
David vs Goliath.
Well, Jones decided to retaliate and Overbuild us. Do you know how hard it was when Jones was giving away 6 months of free service with all the premiums?
Well, a little phone call to HBO, and they slapped Jones with a $1,000,000 fine. (No s**t.)
Then Jones pulled the same crap they did in Maryland City — moved a temporary headend into Glen Burnie for the first Wrestlemania. We fixed them and permitted all the poles in their route.
We sent our salespeople out with briefcases again and gave all our customers and prospects a year’s worth of basic Funny Money — totally above board.
We even had a little present for Jones?
We went and stole their top 3 salespeople. Jones picked the wrong time to go to war.
We stayed out all night if we had to. We never took a day off if we had to. We even started calling Jones’ office numbers to drive up their phone abandonment rate and make sure their customers couldn’t get through.
And then the final slap in the face — we’d drive to their office with a truckload of their customers’ converters and deliver them right in front of their people and customers.
All in all, during the overbuild wars, while counting, we made a list of 5,300 Jones customers we took of theirs and mailed the list straight to Glenn Jones in Colorado as a slap in his face.
And if we didn't have enough problems with Jones, we were fighting the County exec James Lighthizer constantly who was ALWAYS (and I mean ALWAYS) giving us bad press. Makes you wonder whose pocket he was in.
Now enter Clyde Engel. He bought enough Acton stock to take control of the company. Clyde also started buying up the outstanding shares of Jones stock.
We waited until the price of Jones stock rose, then sold the shares and used the profit to overbuild them some more.
Beaten and broken, Jones decided to sell, and Rick O came with a certified check for $3 million to put a down payment on Jones. But the FTC stepped in and shut down the deal.
We ALMOST had them. We actually broke their backs and their morale. They couldn’t keep their customers or their people.
This was our story. Let the struggles from Severna Park 40 years ago never be forgotten. Let our promises never be broken.
