MOUNTAIN TOP COMMUNICATIONS
In late 1961 Ernie Zebal started Sierra Communications, Inc. The corporation was formed in Reno, Nevada as a public utility radio-telephone and radio paging company. In 1965 Mountain Top Communications was established to build radio towers and buildings on mountain top sites in the north western Nevada and eastern California areas.
These radio sites are leased out to TV stations, FM broadcast stations, Paging providers, PCS and Cellular companies as well as Federal State and other government entities.
During the early years they relied on an old 1944 military weasel, and old Kristy snow vehicle, snowmobiles and other over snow machines. The snow vehicles were used to “taxi” radio technicians and construction people to remote sites when the snow closed the roads.
Sierra Communications was sold to ADT Security Systems in 1976 and Mountain Tip Communications continued in the “site rental” business.
MTC has only three employees. Dawn Bibbey has been with the company for 18 years. She manages the daily office operations for three companies they own. This includes scheduling snow vehicles trips, billing, collections, accounts payable and shipping and receiving. Steve Dundas has been with us for over 5 years and takes the “first out” snow vehicles trips. Both Steve and Ernie have been trained and certified in snow vehicle operations, avalanche recognition, tower and climbing rescue, snow survival and basic first aid. They are both certified snow vehicle instructors.
What do they do in the summer when the snow is gone? Repairs, maintenance and new construction at he radio sites along with maintenance of the snow vehicles and trailers pretty much fill the schedule.
When asked about his machines, Ernie replied, “after years of using previously owned snow machines and incurring a lot of expensive summer maintenance I decided to invest in a brand new Tucker Sno-Cat® vehicle. The Model 2000 XL was chosen because of its new lightweight design and rubber tracks and our need for a vehicle with a snow blade. We also anticipate cutting our maintenance costs in half”.
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