Billboard Insider is running an interview series with Pat O’Donnell who just retired as President of YESCO Outdoor Media after a 40 year career in out of home.  Pat served on the board of directors of the OAAA and in 2017 was inducted into the OAAA Hall of Fame.  Today he talks about getting started in out of home.

What’s on your mind?

I have to admit I’m struggling with my transition from running an out of home company for so many years to retirement.  It’s tough to let go…I’m now devoting most of my time to my wife, my children, my grandchildren.  I’m just trying to do my best to live gratefully.

Review your out of home career.

My dad had a neon sign business and a handful of billboards in the Sierra Nevadas in the 50’s and 60’s so I’ve been in the sign business all my life.  I enlisted in the marine corps during the Viet Nam war.  I did 8 years of service.  I was an air traffic controller.  After I got out I went to work as an billboard installer for several companies while I was going  to the school.  These were the days when we were taking down panels and bringing them back to the shop to be painted.  And then in the early 80’s I went to work for the Donrey Media Group.  I worked for them for several years before I went to YESCO in 1988.

What was Donrey like?

Donrey was a big company.  Their philosophy was to own an outdoor plant and a radio station, a tv station in all of these mid-markets.  Places like Reno, Albuquerque, Spokane.  I’ve got to give Don Reynolds a lot of credit.  He had a great vision.

YESCO

I got invited over there in 1988 to try to help them develop their outdoor business.  The GM was a guy by the name of Ben Jones.  He wanted to up the game.  I think we had a couple hundred faces at the time they hired me.  They were primarily an on-premise advertising company.  They had made their name in Las Vegas over the years building sign spectaculars.  At the same time they had a great network of branches in little communities around the west.  They brought me in to develop an outdoor business.  One of the things that we did in those days is that if we built a Holiday Inn sign, they wanted a billboard 6 miles out of town.  We essentially went from having several hundred faces to several thousand faces.  That was my mission.

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