Allen Davis broke into the telecommunications industry more than three decades ago selling cable television service door to door.
The job was part time, his sales pitches squeezed in between undergraduate classes at the University of Tennessee. Cable qualified as a luxury back then. Ted Turner had started the first basic cable network a few years earlier and the package Davis peddled around Knoxville, Tenn., included a fledgling sports station known as ESPN.
Davis found cable a hard sell, but he recognized the potential. He also had some ideas about increasing customer penetration and maximizing revenue per customer. By graduation day, he had the know-how to start his own telecommunications business.
And a fuzzy vision for what was to come.
“One of my earliest deals was with BellSouth back when call waiting was new,” Davis said. “Now we’re doing fiber projects where data speed are 100 times faster than the average broadband connection.”
Davis and his wife, Maury, are the biggest broadband pioneers few have ever heard of, even in their adopted home town of Savannah. Their firm, Coastal Asset Management, has operated out of a Skidaway Village office for the last 23 years, starting companies that were on the leading edge of technology.
Ahead of the game
The Davises have long been telecommunications frontrunners.
One of their subsidiaries was among the first to offer phone service over a cable television system, which would eventually evolve into the “triple play” offerings of today.
They did one of the first localized fiber-optic systems in the country for Culpepper County, Va., and have led or assisted in the development of dozens of fiber-optic networks that compete with more traditional systems across the country.
They’ve become the go-to guy and gal for resort community developers wanting to include fiber-optic broadband infrastructure in their build outs, like Frank Brumley of the Daniel Island Co.
A new project has blown Allen and Maury’s cover. The Atlanta bedroom community of Stockbridge last month granted the Davis’ Coastal Broadband LLC nonexclusive right to develop, build and run a fiber-optic network that will boast the largest Internet capacity in the Southeast.
The deal was characterized as an economic “game-changer” by Stockbridge officials and attracted the attention of the Atlanta media. The network, once completed in 2016, will connect more than 5,000 businesses and schools in Henry County.
“Henry County is unique because you have two major fiber optic lines that run through the county but no connections, like an interstate with no exits,” Davis said. “It is very underdeveloped. A school there, with all its connections, has access to half the bandwidth I get at my house.”
Local business interests
For all their success, the Davises have maintained a low profile — “by design” — locally.
They have more than 130 projects to their credit, but all were completed beyond the Savannah area in locales such as Chattanooga, Tenn., Lafayette, La., and Jackson, Tenn. Many residents in the Davis’ Landings neighborhood thought Allen was a boat captain because of his sport-fishing prowess.
“We kind of like the shadows,” Maury said.
The Davis’ Coastal Asset Management is not without local business interests, though. The company has extensive real estate holdings and has developed or managed everything from apartment complexes to downtown real estate, including the Citizens Bank & Trust building on Johnson Square now owned and occupied by United Community Bank.
Allen Davis is a director of The Coastal Bank.
Maury, meanwhile, owns large tracts of land in Liberty County. She is a descendant of the Jones family who came to America with Gen. James Oglethorpe in 1733 and was among the first settlers of Liberty County.
The Davis’ business focus has been closer to home over the past six years. Allen grew tired of traveling and wanted to be around more for the couple’s youngest children’s teenage years. Allen and Maury have four children ranging in age from 15 to 29.
The few locals who know the Davises well voiced profound respect for their business savvy.
Tom Wiley, who led The Coastal Bank through the recession before becoming the president of State Bank and Trust in Atlanta, characterizes Allen Davis as an “intelligent and competitive” entrepreneur.
“He is a big picture guy who happens to enjoy details as well, and that’s a rare combination,” Wiley said. “He’s not a seeker of the limelight, though. He’s very comfortable within his own skin and has chosen that quiet life. But he’s very active underneath.”