The following blog was written by my wife, Felicia Giorgetti about her father, Roanoke entrepreneur, John Whitcomb:

My father, John Whitcomb, was my first hero and, in more than one way, inspired Power-up Online Promotions! 

Magic at Work

John Whitcomb started a telecommunications company called RCI in 1975, and he is still running it today in 2025.
He was a passionate Roanoke entrepreneur and started with very little in the basement of our tiny home, but he was exceptionally resourceful. He often joked, “I have been doing so much with so little for so long; I am now qualified to do anything with nothing.” 

As a child, he did seem, from my perspective, to be a magician!

I watched my Dad build his company from the basement of our home to a thriving local business leader in his community. Before I was even an adult, I had started a few tiny businesses myself. It was natural to believe without hesitation I could start a business with very little and build something worthwhile and successful. I saw it so often that the extraordinary became ordinary. 

Features such as voicemail, which phones do out of the box now, then required complex engineering feats and solutions my father had to create from scratch. This required knowledge and skill, but that wouldn’t have been enough. What sets him apart and makes him a role model is his fierce tenacity and courage to pioneer unchartered territory with no map. 

Ever the Mentor, John Trains Another Roanoke Entrepreneur

He is a creative, innovative, tenacious, and honorable person. He not only used his business to provide the community with excellence in telecommunications; he also used it to mentor and grow people. He treated his employees like his family and invested in their education and maturation as people. Many technicians that he trained as beginners went on to successful leadership and teaching careers. Those employees frequently visit my dad and see him as a foundational teacher in their success. 

Anthony is one of those who had his start with RCI. When he returned from California from serving in Americorps, John offered him a position in sales to help get him started. Anthony noticed a need to update RCI’s website and online presence, so he shared this with John.

Being who he was and interested in growing people and his business, John gave Anthony the reins. Anthony, in a short period of time, took to SEO like a fish to water and took RCI from being virtually invisible online to ranking on the first page in relevant searches. Soon after he started writing blogs and social media for RCI, sales were on the rise! My father, while benefiting from Anthony’s help, encouraged him wholeheartedly to develop his skills and start his own business. This may have never come to be without John being willing to give Anthony this opportunity. We are thankful for this and that he is still at our side as a reliable advisor and encourager. 

A Member of the Community

This love for others and need to serve the well-being of others was well integrated into his business, life, and community, too. Once, when I was small, sitting in the back seat of the car, we passed a homeless man and woman with a small child on the corner; my Father offered them assistance. He provided the family with transportation and an apartment, sent to him Virginia Western to educate him and trained the gentleman to run cable for him so he could become financially stable again. Early on, anytime money was tight, he would always pay his employees and take no pay himself rather than laying them off. He always honored his price on jobs, win, lose, or draw. 

When it came to growing his success, he saw himself as not just a Roanoke entrepreneur, but part of a greater community – not as independent of those around him but connected. He saw himself as a leader with a responsibility to better the lives of others around him.  We have learned so much from him that we embrace in running our own business. 

We have learned much more than we can say here or may even realize from his influence. He taught us to live in connection and community and to be courageous and tenacious, to innovate when no solution is available, to help others less fortunate, to look to understand and support not just our own best interests but others’ best interests as well, and to be honorable in thought, word, and deed. 

Thank you, Dad, our Father and Mentor!