John Palmer was an entrepreneur, executive, and pioneer in the wireless industry since the early days of paging and cellular. He was born in Mississippi and grew up in Corinth. John began his professional career as a CPA, but his telecommunications career launched in 1965 with the purchase of a local Mississippi radio common carrier.

By 1973, John had developed more than nine regional paging companies throughout the South and formed the Mobile Communications Corporation of America (MCCA). He served as chairman and president of MCCA for 16 years. MCCA participated in the first round of cellular applications and won and was a partner in several cellular licenses. In the late 1980s, John sold MCCA to BellSouth, but from certain entities he retained in that sale, Mtel was born and SkyTel was founded as Mtel’s chief subsidiary as a nationwide paging operator. This included an advanced messaging system, domestic one-way paging, and Latin American paging services. Mtel’s technology advances in paging protocol transmission speeds – innovations proposed and realized by John and Jai Bhagat – helped SkyTel lead the direction of the paging business in the early to mid-1990s and pioneered nationwide one-way paging and two-way advanced messaging. SkyTel became a leader in advanced wireless messaging and deployed the first nationwide two-way wireless messaging network.  John was deeply respected and genuinely adored by everyone he worked with at Skytel.

In 2001, John was appointed by President George W. Bush as U.S. Ambassador to Portugal, where he served until 2004. He served on the President’s Export Council as a private sector advisor to the Secretary of Commerce, and as a private sector trade advisor to the Office of the US Trade Representative. John was a member of the boards of three New York Stock Exchange companies: AmSouth Bancorporation, EastGroup, and Entergy Corporation. Later he served as chairman of Gulf South Capital Inc.

John was a founding member of the Cellular Telecommunications Industry Association (CTIA). He served as Chairman of CTIA, as well as Telocator (now the Wireless Infrastructure Association). John also served as a trustee of Millsaps College, was a member of the board of trustees of the Ogden Museum of Southern Art in New Orleans, LA, and was president and director for The University of Mississippi Foundation. He also served as chairman of the Advisory Board of the MIND Center, an Alzheimer’s research center.

In 1986, John established the John N. Palmer Fellowship in Business Endowment to provide financial assistance to MBA students at the University of Mississippi. John holds B.A. and M.B.A. degrees from the University of Mississippi and an honorary Doctor of Laws degree from Millsaps College. He was inducted into the Wireless Hall of Fame in 2002.