AGE IS NO BARRIER — Black Mountain in Henderson, NV, home to multiple broadcast towers about 15 miles from the Las Vegas Strip, remains part of Denny Todd’s regular maintenance territory. This week at NATE UNITE, he’ll also be renewing acquaintances with the many friends and colleagues he’s made across the industry.
When the doors open this morning at NATE UNITE 2026 in Las Vegas, the crowd will span generations — from first-time 18-year-old tower technicians eager to soak up safety training and new ideas, to seasoned executives guiding the nation’s largest tower portfolios.
And somewhere among the thousands of attendees, moving with the quiet familiarity of someone who’s seen it all before, will be Denny Todd.
Denny Todd, 86, and his significant other, Lynn Leighton, 66, have spent the past 25 years working side by side on towers—a partnership grounded in both profession and passion. Off the job, they share another connection: they are both dedicated amateur radio operators.
On most mornings, while many of his contemporaries are easing into retirement routines, Todd is already on the move across the Las Vegas valley, helping area broadcasters keep their signals on the air — whether it’s an emergency antenna changeout or routine maintenance on aging infrastructure.
In many ways, he looks like any other member of what NATE often calls the industry’s brotherhood — the men and women who quite literally build and maintain America’s communications networks.
Except for one detail: Todd is 86.
And by most accounts, he may be the industry’s oldest active tower technician — still drawn daily to the steel, often climbing structures he may have helped build decades earlier.
While others his age might be researching Acorn stair lifts, Todd is scheduling his next job.
A Lifetime Around Signals and Steel
For Todd, the path to the tower was almost inevitable.
Born in 1940 and raised in Yankton, South Dakota, about 150 miles south of NATE’s headquarters, he grew up immersed in broadcast engineering. His father, Clifton M. Todd, served more than 40 years as chief engineer of WNAX 570 AM, giving young Denny an early look inside the technical world that would shape his life.
By high school, the fascination had already taken hold. In 1955, Todd built a Tesla coil for a science project. A year later, he climbed his first 100-foot tower installing TV receive antennas to pull in Omaha stations nearly 90 miles away.
“I guess you could say I was hooked early,” he has joked over the years.
After earning an electrical engineering associate degree from Central Technical Institute in Kansas City and his FCC First Class Radiotelephone License, Todd moved into broadcast engineering, joining South Dakota Public Television in 1962 and returning in 1966 as assistant engineering director.
Over the next 14 years, he helped install nine high-power television transmitters and built more than 20 seven-gigahertz microwave hops.
When the SDPTV network buildout was completed in 1979, Todd relocated to Las Vegas as chief engineer for KLAS-TV. In 1982, he obtained contractor licenses in Nevada and New Mexico, launched Todd Communications Inc., and began erecting towers while performing antenna testing and repair work.
Along the way, he crossed paths with many of the industry’s early legends in tower fabrication and erection — relationships that helped shape both his technical discipline and his respect for the craft.
Retirement Didn’t Stick
Todd officially retired once, in 1978. It didn’t last.
“The calling came back,” he said. “After about six months, I realized how much I missed the work.”
By 2019, he had launched Tower Service LLC and was back in the field — including projects supporting two-way antenna and microwave work for the U.S. Air Force at the Nellis Test Range.
The Secret to Longevity? It’s Not Yogurt
Given his age and activity level, people often ask Todd about his secret. Is it a diet? Supplements? Some miracle routine? Not exactly.
“I’m living a long time not because I lived a clean life — I’ve had my share of cigarettes and beer,” Todd said candidly.
He quit smoking 35 years ago, though COPD still occasionally requires him to pause for an inhaler — something he admits irritates him mainly because it slows down the job.
If there is one professional habit he credits, it’s simple and unmistakably on-brand for the industry: “100% tie-off at all times,” he said.
Family genetics haven’t hurt either. Longevity runs deep in the Todd family. But more than anything, he points to mindset.
“My attitude is if it’s not fun, it’s not going to get done,” Todd said. “I get immense enjoyment out of doing this work.”
Still a Family Affair
These days, Todd operates lean. He hasn’t carried full-time employees for several years, but the work still runs in the family.
His two grandsons — now in other full-time careers — still lend a hand on weekends when extra help is needed.
And for the past 25 years, he’s shared both life and work with his companion Lynn Leighton, a fellow tower climber roughly 20 years his junior. Arthritis sometimes keeps Lynn on the ground operating the winch, but the partnership — professional and personal — remains strong.
Back Among Friends
At NATE UNITE this week, Todd will once again reconnect with the many colleagues he’s accumulated since becoming a founding NATE member in 1995.
He’s watched the industry transform — from early broadcast builds to today’s dense wireless ecosystems — and he’s seen safety culture evolve dramatically along the way.
He did some cellular work over the years, he notes, but broadcast always felt like home.
Even now, at 86, the pull of the tower hasn’t faded. Because for Denny Todd, this was never just a job. It was — and still is — the calling.
