Airpage (Billings) hiring 250 for national contract

Billings businessman Dan Johnson can barely communicate how harried and happy he is these days.

Dan and his wife, Jackie Johnson, started Airpage http://airpage.net/index.html in 1977. Until recently, the company employed 65 people in Montana. Now the Johnsons are frantically hiring another 250 more employees to handle a national contract.

Jan Falstad Billings Gazette

"I’ve been hiring like crazy. Right now, if I could hire 10 people this very afternoon, I will be ecstatic," he said late Friday.

For two months, Airpage has been working with Clear Channel Radio to handle all business-to-business communications over the telephone. Clear Channel is using software developed by another Billings company, Town Bargains, to help customers "clip" coupons on the Internet.

Airpage’s role is to hook up the "clipper" with the business offering the deal.

"Airpage has been selected to be the human element between the Internet technologies created by Town Bargains and Clear Channel Radio," Johnson said.

Job Service is handling all the applications for work, so don’t call Airpage if you’re job hunting.

The company will be juggling the work in Clear Channel’s 300 media markets. The communications giant owns five radio stations in Billings.

The company, formerly Big Sky Beeper at 735 Grand Ave., offers telephone answering and messaging service. Airpage provides real-time messaging where the recipient is notified quickly of an important call, either by pages, e-mail or telephone.

Jan Falstad can be contacted at (406) 657-1306 or at [email protected]

http://www.billingsgazette.com/index.php?id=1&display=rednews/2003/03/16/build/business/falstad.inc