Speakers

Bernie Arnason
Managing Partner
Pivot Media LLC

Bernie brings 15 years of telecom experience to Pivot Media, where he provides strategic direction and leadership. Bernie follows the telecom industry closely and conducts industry research and analysis, provides strategic consulting for clients, and cultivates insightful telecom mindshare. Bernie is also the managing editor of Telecompetitor, a leading telecom industry blog focused on the evolving telecom competitive landscape. Past accomplishments include co-founding the TelcoTV Conference and Expo which he also chairs. Bernie is a frequent speaker and panelist at regional and national telecom events. Bernie is also a principal with Pivot Media's sister company, Pivot Group, a strategic marketing consulting and research firm serving individual telecom carriers.

Prior to Pivot, Bernie spent seven years with the National Telecommunications Cooperative Association (NTCA) as the vice president of business development. At NTCA, Bernie led a team of five responsible for working with telecom carriers to identify and act upon telecom business and technology developments. Prior to his work with NTCA, Bernie worked for Bell Atlantic (now Verizon) in network operations, where he led a team in the large business/special services group. Bernie has a comprehensive understanding of the telecom industry and brings a wealth of knowledge in IPTV, broadband, wireless and next generation telecom strategies. He has an extensive network throughout the telecom industry. Bernie holds a bachelor of arts in economics from the University of the District of Columbia and a Master of Science in telecommunications from the Johns Hopkins University.

Brett Calder
Director of Sales
Globecomm Systems Inc.

Brett has over 20 years of experience in a variety of roles at telecom service providers and infrastructure vendors, including the launch of multiple national telecommunications networks. At Globecomm, he primarily focuses on hosted network services for North American wireless telecommunications and telephone service providers. Globecomm Network Services addresses the needs of converging IP media and wireless markets by providing unparalleled global IP managed network services.

Craig Freeman
General Manager
Simmetry Communications

Craig has been the General Manager of Simmetry Communications, a wholly owned subsidiary of Adams Telephone Cooperative, since 2004. Prior to that Craig managed the competitve services for Adams Telephone Cooperative, including CLEC, long distance, internet and cable television operations. Simmetry Communications is a GSM carrier in west-central Illinois and northeast Missouri. Simmetry operates a GSM/EDGE network with 50+ sites covering just over 250,000 pops.

John Hendon
Vice President
Telecommunications and Media Investment Banking Group
Stifel Nicolaus

John is principally focused on independent telecommunications services companies and has executed a wide range of financing and merger and acquisition assignments in the sector. Most recently in the wireline arena he has advised Lakedale Telephone in its sale to Iowa Telecom, Hutchinson Telephone in its sale to New Ulm Telcom and Hector Communications in its sale to a Minnesota consortium. On the wireless side, John has advised Spring affiliates Northern PCS, Gulf Coast Wireless and Enterprise PCS in their respective sales to Sprint Nextel, and has also advised numerous other independent wireless companies in sales to carriers such as Verizon Wireless. John joined Stifel Nicolaus in December 2005 pursuant to its acquisition of Legg Mason Capital Markets. He had been with Legg Mason since 2004. Prior to joining Legg Mason, John worked as an Equity Analyst at Trustmark National Bank and a Senior Financial Analyst at MCI WorldCom. He is a graduate of the Darden Graduate School of Business Administration at the University of Virginia and is a CFA Charterholder.

Bo Pyskir
Founder & COO
Lemko

Bohdan Pyskir is chief operating officer and president of Lemko Corporation. He is a strong operating executive with a proven background in starting and growing wireless businesses. Bo has a Master of Art from Harvard University and a Bachelor of Science from the United States Military Academy at West Point.

Rick Rotondo
CMO
Spectrum Bridge

As co-founder and chief marketing officer of Spectrum Bridge, Rick is responsible for planning and implementing the company's marketing strategy. Previously, Rotondo was VP of Marketing for MeshNetworks, where he established MeshNetworks as the "Ad Hoc" networking brand leader through working with partners, journalists, analysts and industry associations. This resulted in hundreds of articles and over two dozen industry awards from the WSJ, Wired, the IEEE and others.

Leo Staurulakis
Executive Vice President
John Staurulakis, Inc.

Leo is the executive vice president of John Staurulakis, Inc. and chairman and principal of JSI Capital Advisors, LLC and JSI Transaction Services, LLC, located in Greenbelt, Maryland. Since joining JSI on a full time basis in 1983, Leo has been actively involved in assisting the firms' clients with various management and operational issues. JSI is a nationally recognized consulting firm in the telecommunications industry, specializing in regulatory, financial and management services primarily for the RLEC industry. JSI was established in 1962.

Larry Thompson

CEO & Founder
Vantage Point Solutions

Larry has been an active participant in the telecommunications industry since 1985. He received a bachelor of arts in physics from William Jewell College, a bachelor of science in electrical engineering from the University of Kansas, and a master of science in electrical and computer engineering from the University of Kansas. He is uniquely qualified to lead Vantage Point Solutions in the ever-evolving telecommunications industry. Larry has a proven track record in both the technical and leadership challenges of the business. Prior to Vantage Point Solutions, Larry was General Manager for the Telecom Consulting and Engineering (TCE) Business Unit of Martin Group.

From a technical standpoint, Larry has expertise in the design and implementation of voice, data and video networks. Larry was lead engineer on some of the largest Digital Subscriber Line (DSL) video deployments in ILEC service areas. In addition, Larry has architected and optimized many large data networks with a focus on throughput and security.

Larry is a registered Professional Engineer (PE) in the states of Colorado, Georgia, Idaho, Iowa, Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, New York, Ohio, South Dakota, Utah, Wisconsin and Wyoming. He is a member of several engineering, math and physics societies, including Eta Kappa Nu, Tau Beta Pi, Sigma Pi Sigma and Kappa Mu Epsilon.

Mike Volpe
Vice President of Marketing
HubSpot

Mike Volpe is VP of Marketing at HubSpot, an Internet marketing software startup, where he leads the company's lead generation and branding strategy through inbound marketing, including blogging, search engine optimization (SEO), video marketing and social media. Since Mike joined HubSpot, the company has grown from about a dozen beta customers to over 1,000 customers, from 5 employees to 65 employees, and raised $17 million of venture capital in two rounds of financing.

Mike is a cutting edge inbound marketer who ranks in the top .1% of all users on Twitter (@mvolpe) with over 6,000 followers, and speaks at numerous conferences including Inbound Marketing Summit and SEM for SMB Conference. Mike also hosts a weekly live marketing video podcast HubSpot TV and blogs frequently.

Before HubSpot, Mike worked as Director, Marketing Operations at SolidWorks, an engineering software company, where he managed all of the company's global lead generation and lead management, advertising, Internet marketing, branding, PR, tradeshows and events. Mike transitioned SolidWorks from "old marketing" to "modern marketing" by launching multiple blogs, starting podcasting, incorporating social bookmarking into press releases, initiating pay-per-click marketing and performing SEO. Mike is a MBA graduate of the MIT Sloan School of Management. He is a Co-Founder and Director of the Boston Scholars Program and a former Director of the Alumni Fund at Bowdoin College.

Greg Whiteaker
Principal
Bennet & Bennet

Greg has over 20 years of legal and public policy experience. He primarily focuses on policy issues relating to the rural wireless telecommunications and rural telephone industries. He serves as regulatory counsel for the Rural Telecommunications Group, a consortium of rural wireless providers deploying innovative and advanced wireless services to rural areas. Greg also concentrates on transactional matters and heads the spectrum auctions team at Bennet & Bennet. Greg is a regular speaker at industry trade shows and has published numerous articles on wireless and rural telecommunications issues. Prior to joining Bennet & Bennet, he was a principal in the public relations firm Emerson Associates in Washington, D.C. In addition to assisting Bennet & Bennet in its regulatory practice, Greg assists in government and media relations matters. He is a member of the Federal Communications Bar Association.

Jerry Wilke
Executive Director
Rural Telecommunications Group

Jerry has 17 years experience in all facets of telecommunications operations, including network and engineering management for GSM/EDGE/UMTS, CDMA 2000, TDMA, AMPS, back office systems, fraud suppression and financial analysis. He has spoken at the FCC Rural Issues forum in Washington, D.C. on e-911 phase II deployments in Rural America, "Early lessons learned". His career has incorporated tenure at local exchange, CATV, mobile, wireless broadband and CLEC operations, bringing a detailed understanding of business support systems "from the trenches" of fixed line, wireless and broadband carriers.

In addition to his work at VPS, Jerry serves as executive director of the Rural Telecommunications Group (RTG). RTG is a Section 501(c)(6) trade association representing rural wireless carriers who serve less than 100,000 subscribers. RTG's members are small businesses serving or seeking to serve secondary, tertiary and rural markets. RTG's membership is comprised of both independent wireless carriers and wireless carriers that are affiliated with rural telephone companies.

Prior to joining VPS, Jerry was the general manager of Long Lines Wireless, a rural Iowa GSM carrier and Cellular One, Great Lakes of Iowa, Inc., a rural CDMA carrier. His responsibilities at these two carriers included operations, sales, marketing and product management. In addition, he was formerly vice president, general manager of the wireless division and director of strategic planning and corporate development at Hickory Tech, a publicly traded communications company that does business in Minnesota and Iowa with headquarters in Mankato, Minnesota.

Carol Wilson
Editor-in-Chief
Telephony Magazine

Carol Wilson is Editor-in-Chief of Telephony magazine. She returned to Telephony in 2004 as editor-at-large. She has covered the telecommunications industry for more than 20 years. Over that period of time, she has been founding editor of two magazines — Inter@ctive Week and The Net Economy — as well as a news and information website, Broadband Edge. Carol began her telecom career as news editor at Telephony in 1985, becoming Editor three years later.