meet UWW alum & global executive Jim Ross '09

Jim Ross '09 is not only one of the world’s most successful telecommunications industry executives, he’s also a devoted husband and father, a lover of great food and wine, and a damn good story teller.  His journey to becoming co-founder, Chief Development Officer (CDO) and Corporate Secretary of Grupo TorreSur (GTS), a nearly half billion dollar telecommunications firm operating in South America, is a tale about hard work, strong family, a lot of smarts, mistakes made and lessons learned, and a little luck.

Jim founded two multi-million dollar telecommunications firms and served as president and CDO of another before finishing his bachelor’s degree at UMass UWW and taking on his current leadership role at GTS. Remember when cell phones were the size and weight of bricks?  Jim was there at the beginning. Holding his “brick” to his ear while gazing up at an old microwave tower on the Mass Turnpike, he was the guy who saw the possibilities; a pioneer who realized that the wireless companies were going to need land to build towers on.  It was that innovative, entrepreneurial thinking that has made him a leading figure in the global telecommunications industry. 

From YMCA to Global Executive

The oldest of three boys growing up in Springfield, MA, Jim practically lived at the local YMCA, and was in the first class to be bused to non-neighborhood schools during efforts to end public school segregation. Graduating from Springfield’s Cathedral High School, he waited tables, bartended, and attended Springfield College for two years until his father told him he would no longer pay for him to “major in Budweiser.”  No longer in school, Jim did what many 20 year olds do - he took a road trip which landed him in Portland, OR where he waited tables and worked his way up to be an assistant manager at a Marriot hotel. Not yet old enough to legally drink, it was here that that he “fell in love with food and wine.” Although he loved Oregon and “caused plenty of trouble out there”, he came back because of something he loved more - his high school sweetheart, and now wife of 23 years, Martha.

Back in Springfield, Jim moved through a number of jobs, teaching clerical skills to mothers receiving welfare, working as a employment recruiter, and opening his own employment recruiting business, which, he reflected, “went down in flames in about a year and a half because I was young, a shitty manager and didn’t understand the fundamentals of running a business.”

The guy who brought you four bar cell phone reception

What happened next changed his life. Jim started working for a preeminent commercial real estate firm in Western, MA specializing in what’s called “special use”, or unusual, hard to appraise properties. “One day we got a call from the Mass Turnpike. They had been approached by this little company called Verizon - which was Bell Atlantic back then - that wanted to put cell phone antennas up on the 13 microwave towers that ran from Boston west to the New York border.  The pike hired my firm to do an analysis of the industry to find out what they should be charging for rent. This was my first look at the tower industry.”

“I saw this as a real estate opportunity. If we could get smart about this wireless stuff, we should be able to create this 'bionic' real estate firm that could do this smarter and faster than had ever been done in the past. I convinced my two partners to close our appraisal firm and focus all of our attention on the emerging telecomm industry.”

Six months later, with Jim still bartending at night, his wife working three jobs, tiny children to care for, and bill collectors knocking on the door,  the business was still not off the ground and he started having second thoughts about this telecomm project.  “It wasn’t worth the risk to my family any more and I decided to become a state cop instead. I thought all I have to do is take this test, take the physical and I’d have a steady paycheck for the rest of my life to support my family. I did well on the the test, and after enduring the physical received the letter from the Massachusetts State Police advising me of a place in the next academy class. But my wife, hating the idea of me walking around with a gun on my hip and a target on my back, told me to wait two weeks; that she had a good feeling about this telecommunications thing. I threw the letter in the trash and three days later I got the call and my new company became the largest site acquisition contractor for Sprint in the county. They gave us a contract to acquire 1000 pieces of real estate for them.”

As a pioneer in the field, he learned as he went along. “We lost one of our first contracts because we didn’t know what the hell we were doing, but we got smart pretty fast and ended up building throughout the country in really great markets. We learned a bunch about towers and learned that the real action was in owning the towers themselves and renting them to companies who would share the space.  We started by building a couple dozen towers and holding an auction. We had the whole project sold to American Tower before we ever put a shovel in the ground.”

Finishing his degree through UMass UWW

Despite all his success, Jim never thought he would be able to finish his college degree. “I was too busy. Life took over. I had three kids and a business. But I always felt handicapped by not having a degree. I can’t tell you the number of board rooms I sat in, in New York, Madrid, London, all over the world, where the conversation would come around to – where did you go to school? And I would hope it didn’t come around to me because what would I say?”

When Jim found UMass UWW it was a match made in heaven. “I looked into the program, saw it was online and that I never had to come to campus, and the rest is history.” He received a great education, taking business courses through Isenberg School of Management, UWW courses that honed his critical thinking, writing and research skills, and receiving academic credit for writing a portfolio that reflected on his successes (and failures) as a businessman.  “Receiving my degree through UMass UWW has helped me interact with people in my organization because I have received a modern education with a strong focus on critical thinking.”

“Through writing my portfolio I learned about all the mistakes I made. I got to analyze my business failures. It helped me understand who I was. You spend a lot of time when you fail at something blaming other people. Through writing my portfolio, I was finally able to understand that I was the perpetrator of many actions that caused some of my businesses to fail. You have to look yourself in the mirror. I did, and I saw how I had become a better business manager – UWW agreed, they awarded me 26 credits for my Prior Learning Portfolio!.”

For Jim, attending the UMass Amherst commencement was incredible. “It was great sitting in the stadium with 6500 of my newest friends. My wife and daughters were there with me. It was so important to have them see me graduate. I didn’t want to give my daughters an excuse to not go to college - the old ‘you didn’t do it, I don’t have to do it either.’”

Big plans, big dreams

Jim is humble about his success and has a strong commitment to giving back. “Life’s been really good to me and I feel a real obligation to give back. I believe that at work and I believe that outside of work.”  To this end, Jim volunteers for many non-profit organizations. He currently serves on the Advisory Board for the UMass University Without Walls, the Board of Advisors for the Scantic Valley YMCA, the Board of Trustees for the Willie Ross School for the Deaf, and serves as Vice Chair of the Board of Directors for the Springfield YMCA - his old playground.

He also has new projects and plans for the future. A great lover of wine, Jim and two partners hold exclusive Massachusetts distribution rights for a number of vineyards located within an invaluable twelve square miles of wine country in a southern Australian region called the Mclaren Vale as well as other vineyards in Italy, Portugal, South Africa and the Pacific Northwest. Then there’s his love of teaching - his passion and his future. “I love teaching,” he says, beaming. And given the richness of his life’s journey, there’s no doubt that his students will benefit from the wisdom, experience, skills and knowledge he has to offer.

I finished my interview by asking him what advice he had for adults who have not finished their college degrees. “You’re not too busy. You just have to do it. You have to Nike the thing and just do it.” Well said Jim.