About CellBooster… and Rob

What is CellBooster.us?

In order to determine what CellBooster.us is, we need to take a journey back in time… like WAY back.

*cue: Staying Alive by the Bee Gees*

The year was 1978! Space Invaders was revolutionizing the video game industry,  Saturday Night Fever was packing theaters, and Jimmy Carter, the simple peanut farmer from Georgia, was obliterating the US economy. While Poncherello and Baker were keeping the fictional highways of California safe, far away, in the suburbs of Salt Lake City, my mother was hunched over a porcelain throne evacuating the contents her stomach. What she thought was a serious case of the flu ended up being the greatest gift she could ever hope to receive. For behold, She was pregnant. With me!

I wasn’t the mouth-breathing jock my dad hoped that I’d be. That being said, I wasn’t COMPLETELY uncoordinated, but I wasn’t going to be Kobe Bryant… mostly because he was 6 months older than me, and growing up in Philadelphia. I was smart. I liked to take stuff apart, see how it worked, and try to put it back together. In fact, My dad was a travelling salesman. He sold inventory to video stores across the western US, and I was his VHS video fixer guy. I was apparently born with “The Knack” (as foretold in this Dilbert Clip)

Making it Official

In 2003-ish (I think), I decided to come out of the nerd closet, of sorts, and make it official. My lovely wife was sick of me changing my major, and I finally received my Bachelor’s Degree in Electronics Engineering Technology from Weber State University. I took my first job out of school as a broadcast engineer in what had become my home town (Saint George, UT).

My boss was great, but his son-in-law (who had magically, all of a sudden, learned all there was to know about business) had just taken over as the manager. We didn’t see eye-to-eye. When I expressed my concerns, (in a tirade of vocabulary with enough color to make a Leonid Afremov painting look like a Van Gogh) I was subsequently dismissed. I had been fired before (by my dad, like 800 times… we didn’t see eye-to-eye) when I had worked my summers with him in construction (he was back to being an ironworker now). It was beginning to dawn on me that maybe I wasn’t cut out for working for an employer (is anyone else sensing a pattern here?). So, I decided to go out on my own.

 One Man Wolfpack

I put myself through college installing and servicing phone systems. Now, I was going to do it on my own, full-time. So, I started my own business and for several years I was pretty successful. I branched into home theaters, security systems and home automation. Things were good! And… That’s when the economy tanked.

I came home from work one day, after spending all day trying to drum up some more business, and my wife had my church suit laid out on the edge of the bed. She sat me down and informed me that I had a job interview tomorrow and that it was in my best interests to make sure that I secured the job.

Naturally, with my striking good looks, my winning smile, and my overwhelming humility, I got the job. And thus began, the portion of my life that I refer to as “The Wilson Years”.

The Wilson Years

Prior to this point in my life, I hadn’t used much of my Electronics Engineering Degree. This job at Wilson Electronics (now WeBoost), would change all that. I began to do a lot of RF engineering and I absolutely LOVED it! Cell phone signal boosters were a very interesting product. Our WeBoost signal boosters were intricately designed and carefully thought out. Cell phone boosters was an underserved market and there was a huge potential for growth. I had stock options! And, of course, Wilson (WeBoost) signal boosters were easily the best products on the market. I spent considerable time testing and comparing our amplifiers to all others on the market and we dominated that market! Somehow, I was a member of the best cell phone signal booster engineering team in the world.

Face For Radio

When I was younger, I worked for several years in my local market as a radio announcer. When our owner found out that I had been in radio, and because I was so incredibly handsome, I became the “face” of Wilson Electronics. Visiting the website would submit you to myself explaining all of the different places that you could click on our website to find our different products. I was moved to the marketing department, resigned to make installation and comparison videos for the rest of my life.

So here I was, stuck in the marketing department. An engineer by birth, working as a talking head. My coworkers were AMAZING! I met a ton of really great people (more about them later), but RF Engineering is my passion, and as you can imagine, I wasn’t happy.

I had just finished reading some book about the universe or something and I had decided that I was going to move myself back to the engineering department. So, I picked up all my stuff, and I moved back into my old desk and gave myself a few projects. I felt that Wilson wasn’t innovating enough, and I decided to write a manifesto to share my thoughts on the future of the company. It was titled: “Wilson’s Future and LTE.” Apparently, the owners didn’t feel the same way that I did, and I was let go for being (and I QUOTE): “Too forward thinking and not conducive to the environment.”

Happy Trails

Apparently, when you are let go from a job, your stock options don’t go with you. A little while after I left, our owner sold the company to a capital firm and made a GRUNDLE of money. I am truly, very happy for him, he was a great mentor and boss. All of the other engineers in the company made hundreds of thousands of dollars from their stock options… And that’s when I realized that maybe I should just learn to keep my damn opinions to myself.

Anyways, I have managed to keep myself working with RF ever since I started at Wilson all those years ago (except for the year that I was working night shifts at the hotel to make ends meet after I was fired). But, things always seem to work out how they are supposed to, and I find myself in a good place now. My friends at Wilson (WeBoost), however, were not. The capital firm that took over WeBoost couldn’t seem to get a few things figured out. From what I hear, the environment over there became a little, what the Spanish would call “pesado”-  heavy. Not fun anymore.

You mean, THAT SureCall?

Some time ago, a few of my good friends from the Wilson days were approached by the owner of SureCall. They met with Hong, the owner of SureCall, and they were considering jumping ship to a better environment. I profusely warned them against it, because in my capacity at Wilson (WeBoost) I had tested many a SureCall cellular signal booster, and I noticed that they were not great. They were actually kind of terrible. Naturally, I didn’t want my buddies to go to work for a company with a terrible product.

Fast forward many years. I had one of my SureCall peeps call me and ask me if I, being an engineer, would mind testing a few SureCall products. They wanted to see how they stacked up to the competition (WeBoost). I quickly agreed because I now had the chance to prove to them how they had made the biggest mistake of their lives by moving to Wilson’s (WeBoost’s) competitor. It was going to be sweet, sweet vindication. I got out my recipe book and opened it to my “humble pie” recipe. And I was all too willing to feed it to them. Little did I know, the recipe that I was actually cooking was for crow.

Conversion

I know it’s taken me a long while to get to the point, if any of you are still here, know that I was absolutely AMAZED at SureCall’s performance. I had tested them before years ago, and they were nothing to write home about. But now, they are incredible. I tested them thoroughly and compared them side by side with the Wilson (WeBoost) comparison products.

The SureCall signal boosters stacked up so well, in fact, that I HAD to become a dealer. I needed to start selling them for myself. So, I jumped onto godaddy, registered myself a domain (CellBooster.us) and put together a site. CellBooster was founded for an almost evangelical purpose. I need to get the word out: “there is an EXCELLENT alternative to the overpriced WeBoost products out there.”

Also, I feel some kind of “spirit animal” connection to the folks there at SureCall. I am an entrepreneur at heart. I’ve built a businesses or two (or three) before and I’ve experienced all of the emotions that go along with that calling. SureCall has a passion for building great products. Their goal is to assemble a first-class team and sell their cellular signal boosters to the world. I can easily identify with that mantra.

My name is Rob and I’m a SureCall convert. I hope that you will become converted yourself. And if you decide to purchase a cell phone signal booster, I hope that CellBooster.us is where you’ll decide to buy it.

Which reminds me: You can visit our store here!

Thanks for stopping by!

Rob Richey – Cellbooster.us