ZEELAND -- The idea first
came to him while he was camping in Ludington more than 20 years ago.
Traveling in the fall during the slow off-season,
Bill Baker's group found little information available on what to do, what
to see, or even where to go for camping supplies. A disc jockey at a radio
station in Moline, Ill., across the Mississippi River from Iowa, Baker
thought about the potential for starting a radio station that would
broadcast continuous messages for visitors to the area.
"You don't know what's going on up there. I
didn't even know where to buy firewood," Baker recalled of the 1981 trip
to Ludington State Park.
"It occurred to me that it would be cool if there
was a little radio station in the park -- 'Hey, you campers, here's where
to buy wood,'" he said. "I had to do something."
After returning home, Baker investigated and then
pursued the idea. Two years later he formed his own company to install
low-power AM radio stations that would provide information to tourists.
Twenty years later, the owner and president of
Information Station Specialists in Zeeland is as busy as ever. His idea
has evolved from providing information for tourists visiting an attraction
or community, to informing motorists about road conditions or construction
ahead and travelers about parking conditions and security requirements at
an airport, to providing an important and easy-to-use communications link
to the public during a crisis.
The technology behind low-power AM stations was
"already on the shelf. All we did was apply a little creativity to
integrating, assembling and making it accessible," Baker said. "It's a
great use of technology and spectrum."
While tourism and interpretive stations remain
the largest sources of business, emergency uses have grown substantially
since the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks on the United States. In the more
than two years since, Baker has installed 20 lower-power stations for
emergency management officials around New York City.
The massive power outage across North America on
Aug. 14 that left 50 million people without power provided a subsequent
surge in interest from emergency management administrators. The low-power
stations can operate on battery power for up to five days.
"People have called non-stop since the outage,"
said Baker, whose company has installed more than 1,000 low-power stations
across the country. "If your power goes out, the mayor still has a way to
talk to people, and that's what we're selling -- a big megaphone so they
can talk directly to citizens."
Information Station Specialists, with just six
employees and annual sales of about $1.5 million installs 100 to 200 of
the so-called "advisory radio stations" a year that are easily maintained
and programmed, and cost from $12,000 to $25,000 (depending on the use) to
set up, including equipment, installation and FCC licensing. The stations
have a broadcast range of three to five miles. An organization or
community can broadcast over a far larger geographic area through a
network of stations. A 1977 graduate of Indiana University with a
degree in communications, Baker initially dabbled in advisory radio
stations as a hobby while he made a living in radio as a DJ. After
learning through "trial and error" the technical side of setting up
low-power stations, he landed his first customer in the summer of 1982
when he convinced a park manager in Illinois to try out his idea by
offering to set up an advisory station at a campground for free.
It worked. An in 1983, after Baker left the radio
business behind when the station changed formats, he formed Tour Radio
Co., a name that was later changed to Information Station Specialists.
National parks and tourism bureaus were the early
customers for Baker, using the company's low-power stations as a way to
provide information to visitors. The industry is rooted in tourism uses,
with the first stations showing up in the 1970s at Yellowstone National
Park.
. . . to top of next column |
An Ohio native, Baker and his wife, Megan, the
company's bookkeeper, moved the business to Michigan in 1986. They didn't
have any connection to the area, other than vacationing here from time to
time.
In looking for a new place to settle down, the couple
says West Michigan as a place that was located equidistant between his
hometown in Ohio and hers in Iowa, as well as offering "fun recreation we
wouldn't see in central Indiana or western Kentucky," Bill Baker said.
Baker ran the company from his home for eight years
before moving into an office in 1994 on 88th Avenue in Zeeland, and he has
seen Information Station Specialists grow steadily over the years.
Baker credits the company's success, particularly
in the early going, to a no-nonsense approach with potential customers
that is devoid of any gimmicks or inflated promises. His sales style, he
said, stems from his Christian faith.
"Business is actually a spiritual thing because
you work person to person," he said. "I just discovered that pe9ople
recognize the truth when they hear it."
In the 1990s, highway departments began to buy
low-power stations (known in the setting as highway advisory radio, or HAR)
to broadcast road and construction information to motorists. The
popularity of the stations to provide information to tourists and
travelers also grew.
Baker counts among his clientele the Michigan
Department of Transportation, which uses low-power stations to provide
information to motorists approaching the Mackinac Bridge from either
direction, as well as the Ambassador Bridge at the U.S.-Canada border in
Detroit and the Blue Water Bridge that connects Port Huron and Sarnia,
Ontario.
Among his customers in West Michigan are the
Holland Area Convention & Visitors Bureau and Gerald R. Ford International
Airport, which uses a low-power station to broadcast (on AM 1610) parking
information, direction, security measures and travel tips for passengers.
In 2000, Information Station Specialists
introduced units for emergency advisory radio stations that communities
and organization can use to broadcast vital information during emergencies
or severe weather, such as hurricanes or the intense windstorm that struck
West Michigan in the spring of 1998.
The stations are accompanied by roadway signs
that are equipped with flashing lights to signal to motorists to tune in.
Portable stations also are easily deployed in problem areas to help
disseminate public information, Baker said.
Baker sees emergency management uses as "the
future" for Information Station Specialists. In that arena, he counts as
his customers a Dow Chemical plant in Texas, a nuclear power plant in
Washington state, the city of Sterling Heights in suburban Detroit, and
several military installation and federal agencies, including the CIA.
In emergency management administrators, Baker has
a customer base that possesses keen understanding of the potential for
low-power stations as a communication tool, "and they are much more
motivated than someone using it as a PR function," he said.
Amid the seriousness of the emergency-management
uses, there are some unique applications that are just plain fun. Among
them: A dog-mushing club in Maine that uses a low-power station to inform
participants that the race is about to begin.
"It's a product that has so many applications
that it's fun to go to work every day," Baker said. "You never have two
days alike in a row."  |
