By B.C. Manion
Greg Hutchens knows quite a bit about satellite phones.
In fact, he has a satellite communications business that he operates out of a converted garage in his Odessa home.
He also knows about responding to emergencies.
Recently, Hutchens was at the Keystone Civic Association meeting, where he gave the group a satellite phone to help the team the community has formed respond to emergencies.
When Hurricane Katrina slammed into New Orleans, Hutchens personally transported more than 100 satellite phones to emergency responders in Louisiana.
The hurricane had knocked out delivery services, Hutchens explained.
“Because of the urgency and the need, I took my pickup truck, and we drove up to Louisiana with FEMA (Federal Emergency Management Agency) authorization papers and got through all of the blockades, and we delivered the phones to the United States Army up there,” Hutchens said.
After dropping off those phones, he headed back home to Florida, where he got a call from the 101st Airborne in California.
That group was going to help in New Orleans and needed a dozen satellite phones, Hutchens said. He flew out to California, satellite phones in tow.
When the airplane landed, he made a beeline to the hotel to charge the phones. In a span of 12 hours, Hutchens had brought the devices cross-country and primed them for delivery.
Word got out about his company’s commitment to service, said Hutchens, who is founder and CEO of BEX Voice Data Satellite Communications.
“I was getting calls from government agencies. We had five people in the office here. We were processing orders for phones, 24 hours a day,” Hutchens said, recalling the flurry of activity caused by Hurricane Katrina.
His company also responded to the earthquake in Haiti.
“We had several church organizations, nonprofits that went down there that we supplied,” Hutchens said. “We did supply some of the government agencies,” adding that satellite phones are vital for keeping open lines of communication.
“Satellite phones work when cell phones and landlines don’t,” Hutchens said. “When an earthquake hits, like in Haiti, the cell phone towers went down and the power went out. The satellite phones kept working.”
Disaster zones aren’t the only places where the devices come in handy, he said.
They’re used by military personnel in remote locations and by members of homeland security. Commercial fishing boats, oilrigs and vacations to places off-the-grid are spots where the phones are often used.
Hutchens got into the business after hearing about the phones from Cap. Mel Berman, a widely known radio personality who was considered the voice of the Gulf Coast fishing scene.
Hutchens said that Berman, who has since died, knew the Odessa man was in the communications business. So, Berman asked Hutchens if he’d heard about satellite phones that worked as far as 50 miles offshore.
Hutchens, who also rents the devices, checked it out and it led to him starting his company in 1999.
The business offers a broad range of satellite phone service and phones including Terre Star, Iridium, Globalstar, Thuraya and Inmarsat. It also provides satellite communications, global positioning and marine electronic, among other services.
During the years, the company has developed a client list of roughly 1,000 and has branched out to include four locations across the country.
“If Tampa gets knocked out, we have three other distribution centers,” Hutchens said. “We’ve got them in Arizona, Virginia and Oregon.”
In his line of work, it’s important to be prepared for emergencies.
For more information
For more information about BEX Voice Data Satellite Communications, call toll free: (800) 654-4437 or (813) 920-8575, or visit http://www.bexvoicedata.com.
