Arlene Harris was literally born into the wireless industry, getting her start at an early age in her family’s business, Industrial Communications Systems (ICS), which provided car radiophone service in Los Angeles, CA. In 1969, taking a job in the airline industry, she helped Continental Airlines plan and build the first databases for automated ticketing systems. This experience laid the groundwork for her future in wireless.
In 1972, Arlene returned to ICS which had entered the wireless business selling an early beeper. She and her family built one of the largest single-city paging operations in the world. ICS also developed Life Page, the first consumer wireless health application service for organ transplant recipients and their families. Learning the importance of scaling a business from the airline industry, Arlene saw the same scaling potential in the rapidly developing wireless industry.
In the 1980s, Arlene founded Subscriber Computing Inc. (SCI) which built the first networked automated provisioning systems now used by many cellular retail channels and the first early theft abatement systems. She also co-founded Cellular Business Systems Inc. (CBSI), a cellular billing and customer management system. Arlene worked in conjunction with OKI Electronics and Motorola, to create Cellular Pay Phone Inc. (CPPI), an over-the-air application-specific cellular phone and billing and management system. In 2006, she bought a wireless carrier and created Assessable Wireless, and then created a technology that for the first time enabled local telephone number assignments for a nationwide network. Arlene also launched GreatCall and Jitterbug which focused on cell phones for senior wireless customers.
Because of her contributions to wireless, and being one of the first female leaders in the industry, Arlene has received multiple awards and recognition that include: Jitterbug named “Top 100 Products” in 2007, named among Top U.S. Wireless Inventors of All Time, the Consumer Technology Hall of Fame, the PCIA Foundation’s Distinguished Chairman’s Award, the ATHENA Award, was named a Fellow in the Radio Club of America, and was the first woman inducted into the Wireless Hall of Fame. She holds several patents, two of which are for the payphone systems that were later licensed to GTE Mobilnet, now Verizon Wireless.
Arlene, along with her husband Marty Cooper, is co-founder and CEO of Dyna, LLC. They reside in Del Mar, CA.
Inducted into the Wireless Hall of Fame in 2007, presented at the 2010 Awards Dinner in San Francisco.
Video montage of the first 24 members of the Wireless Hall of Fame.