group to see if we could get some interest. Steve and Mike, brought Mitchel Pierce and David Ferrari with them. During that meet- ing, Janie Kelley, Max Kelley’s daughter, and her husband Jack invited all of them, to Seat- tle, Washington, to explore the possibilities. They all stayed at the Kelley’s ranch house surrounded by their giant Arabian horses. One thing about these huge animals is that they need lots of exercise. So, the boys mount- ed up and took the horses to a nearby moun- tain trail. The trail took them to the top of the overlook above where the birds flew. They were standing tall in the saddle. If this wasn’t enough excitement, before mounting up, they checked Jack’s arsenal and loaded up on all kinds of guns, rifles, and ammo. At the top of that ridge, they got off the horses and prac- ticed target shooting. Everyone got along great. Jack and Janie decided to invest in IRT. In 2006, IRT was sold and their investment matured, but IRT lost touch with them. Steve saw their name on a list of unknown investors and contacted them to retrieve their money. It was just in the nick of time. When he called, they were in trouble. The business had shrunk down to one location, and the bills were mounting. Janie was very sick, and Jack was spending most of his time taking care of her. Steve told them about the extra money coming to them and after hear- ing their condition offered to buy the compa- ny. They accepted. A deal was made, and Steve flew out there with his son, Jaime, to close the purchase. It was his first purchase of a compa- ny. I coached him as best I could, but still, some items were missed. Later, Jack and Janie, explained, “We would not have sold it to anyone else.” I was very appreciative of their thoughts and told them we would keep the company in Seattle, clean it up, and maintain the staff. We are still there, and it is doing fine.
Janie Kelley working a switchboard
the big award. On the same day, Steve and Diane had their 4th child, Cassidy Carson. This had to be one of the luckiest days in Shooster history. KELLEY’S I always considered Max Kelley, with awe. He owned three answering services, a paging company, and an Arabian horse ranch, plus all his kids were involved in the business. It was one of the oldest and largest in the USA. He practically started the industry. Max was a humble fellow. He started his business by running a single phone line to a small desk. He did this a few times leaving a few more phones on his desk. They were the 1st to buy Tascom, a computerized answering service system. In fact, one of the reasons we bought ours was the faith and trust we had in Max Kelley. The Tascom user’s group met once a year. In 1990, it was in San Francisco. By this time we had established our software company (IRT) and wanted to do a demo at the user’s
429
Made with FlippingBook. PDF to flipbook with ease