I started the business in November 1987 building our first sign in Parker Arizona. We originally called the company Sign Broker USA, but after a couple of years decided to change the name to Parker Outdoor as the original name was confusing to the marketplace. We moved back to my original home state of Washington and started building signs there.  In the late 90’s an opportunity arose in Snohomish County as the state decided to expand highway 522 to meet population growth needs. We were able to secure a number of leases in the coming expansion areas and built out the signs at the same time the state was completing their highway construction. In 2001 we built 2 new trivisions and converted two others to expand capacity.  In 2008, we moved our office to Central Washington and started building signs in Brewster, Omak and Yakima.  2013 was the year we put in our first digital in Woodinville and added a a second digital in Everett.  In 2014 we started building again in Arizona.

Currently we have 120 total faces with 39 of those in Arizona, 1 just over the Washington border in Idaho and the rest in Washington.  All of our growth has been internal as we secure our own land leases and build our own structures. My sons have been helping more recently and are part of the installation team.

In 2015, a code change in Mojave County created an opportunity for us and we have built 13 new structures over the last two years. The county made changes to the spacing requirements along with un-designating a highway from scenic to non scenic.  The signs are within 30 minutes of the Laughlin Nevada market with potential for casino business.  The State of Arizona early this year passed a new bill potentially allowing us to convert some of our signs to digital (See Insider Article).

We originally bought a solar package from one company.  They claimed that the lighting would be sufficient to light our boards. On installation we discovered the lights were not strong enough for billboards standards, as well as having problems with the charge controller.  We decided that we could come up with a better solution on our own and after some trial and error we settled on a larger 300 watt solar panel, Formetco’s solar light and an MPPT charge controller.  We now have 6 structures that are solar.

Our other structures we have converted to LED lights and have them on photo cells, which we have found to be very economical.

We have used Yesco for both of our digital signs. Both units overall have worked very well for us.

With the potential to add additional digital in Arizona, understanding how to sell our digital product is important.  The most common objection we get on digital is having to share with other advertisers. We have found though by stressing the ability to quickly change ad copy as well as timing ads to meet their promotion schedules is an asset.  We also are doing more short term campaigns of 1 to 2 months. It means a little more work and planning to keep everything filled, but I am OK with that as we are keeping our slots booked up.

I think a large part of our success in sales is that every day I take at least two hours tp make sales calls.  I focus on touching base with existing customers as well as always looking for new prospects. We have found that consistency has made a huge difference for us in our sales.

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