Shane Mitchell

Shane Mitchell (born July 1958) is an American entrepreneur and political activist. He has been at the forefront of innovation in the areas of convenience store/fast food hybrids, computer services, and broadband Internet access.
Mitchell was born in Houston, TX, the oldest of five siblings: Kathryn, Anjeanette, Cody, and Chad.
Awards and Nominations
Mr. Mitchell was named Outstanding Young Businessman by the Marion County Mississippi Jaycees in 1983. He has served as a featured speaker and seminar instructor for the National Association of Convenience Stores (NACS).
Political Activism
Mr. Mitchell has been involved in various political efforts, including improvement of education in Mississippi and Texas, and water conservation in Texas. He has run for public office on three occasions; Mississippi House of Representatives in 1983, San Antonio, TX City Council in 1986, and the Edwards Aquifer Authority in 2008. He has earned a reputation for working for the rights of the poor and underpriveliged, and for those who do not have a voice or the ability to protect themselves from the efforts of those with means.
Entrepreneurial Efforts
Mr. Mitchell has a long and storied history of being at the cutting edge in the industries that he has operated his business ventures. At the age of 20, Mr. Mitchell served as the Director of Food Service Operations for Jr. Food Mart, a 300 unit chain of convenience stores, where he helped to develop the Creole Fried Chicken/MorningFresh Bakery concept, a precursor to today's incorporation of fast food giants such as KFC, Taco Bell, and Mc Donald's into convenience store operations. He was the first to introduce video game consoles into convenience stores in 1979, creating a new profit center for these businesses. While operating his own 23 unit chain of Jr. Food Mart franchise stores, he began to create his own software for data management and reporting of convenience store, restaurant, and gasoline operations. This software was designed to run on a Wang Laboratories minicomputer. Mr. Mitchell's stores were over 150 miles from Wang's closest service center, so he learned how to repair and maintain these expensive and proprietary computers on his own.
Upon selling his convenience store chain, and at the age of 24, he founded a field service company for repair of Wang Laboratories minicomputers, and was one of the first in the United States to break Wang's monopoly on their field service contracts which were quite expensive. This company had offices in San Antonio, Houston, and Austin TX; Albuquerque NM and Durango CO, and at one time was Wang's largest competitor for government contracts on field service of their computers.
Mr. Mitchell has owned and/or operated numerous other businesses including travel agencies, mail order computer sales, and computer retail operations. Most recently he entered the Internet Service Provider (ISP) industry, and created one of the first wireless Internet Service Provider (WISP) companies, offering broadband Internet in rural areas in South Texas where DSL and cable modem services are not available. He is currently the President of WispSource, Inc, a WISP consulting firm, and , a rural provider of broadband and digital telephone (VOIP) services in Medina County TX.
Personal
Mr. Mitchell was born in Houston, TX and is the son of Ben Mitchell, Jr.(deceased), who was a barber and a beekeeper, and Judith Vivian (Bernd) Mitchell, a homemaker. As a youth, he lived in Las Vegas, NV, El Paso, Alpine, Monahans, and Fischer, TX, before moving to San Antonio, TX at the age of 12. While attending church that year, he met his future wife, Daisy Robertson. Although they would not date until after high school, they shared dances and common experiences at various times in their youth. While attending college, he saw his wife, Daisy, at a church dance, and they began dating in 1977 and married in November, 1978. They have four sons; Shane, Thaddeus (Thadd), Zachary (Zach), and Ian. Mr. Mitchell is a private pilot and plays baseball in the San Antonio Men's Senior Baseball League. He currently resides in the San Antonio TX area.

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