QTS Richmond NAP Contributors 

Vint Cerf

Internet Hall of Fame An American Internet pioneer, who is recognized as one of "the fathers of the Internet", sharing this title with TCP/IP co-inventor Bob Kahn. His contributions have been acknowledged and lauded, repeatedly, with honorary degrees and awards .

Mark Warner

State of Virginia Mark Robert Warner is an American businessman and politician serving as the senior United States Senator from Virginia. He is currently a Vice Chair of the Senate Democratic Caucus and the Vice Chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee. 

Twyla Powell

Henrico County Twyla has worked in Economic Development for 11 years, serving as a project manager at the state and county levels. Twyla has been involved with the Data Center Developments at Henrico County. Previously she worked at IBM and AT&T.

John Vithoulkas

Henrico County As the County’s chief administrative officer, John is responsible for all county general government operations; an approved annual fiscal plan of more than $1 billion in operating and capital budgets.

Enrique Valdes

Telxius Vice President Sales - North Region for Telxius, the telecommunication infrastructure company of the Telefónica Group managing a unique combination of towers and an international network of high capacity fiber optic submarine cables.

Frank Rey

Microsoft Frank is a seasoned industry leader with over 15 years of experience. Frank worked on Marea cable system which has added a much-needed diverse submarine system to the East Coast of the US.

Dave Crowley

Microsoft Chief Technical Advisor at Microsoft Advising for our Azure cloud network and data center strategy while focusing on next-generation networks including, 5G developments, AI, IoT, LiFi, small-cell technologies and Satellite.

Najam Ahmad

Facebook Najam Ahmad serves as the VP, Network Engineering at Facebook.  Ahmad oversees all aspects of the development and operation of a global network infrastructure that serves more than a billion people around the world.

Martin Hannigan

DeepEdge Martin Hannigan is a founder and Chief Technical Officer of Deep Edge Technologies. Deep Edge is building the next generation of access datacenters for the explosion of service provider technology currently underway.

Nicole Cooper

Megaport Nicole is the EVP for the Americas. With over 20 years of  experience in telecommunications, she is responsible for strategy, implementation and execution of sales initiatives throughout the region. 

Don McNeil

Fiber Light Don joined FiberLight in 2017 and was appointed to the Chief Executive role after a successful turn as the company’s Chief Operations Officer. He brought with him a rich operations and technology background and a successful career as a Surface Warfare Officer in the United States Navy.

Fletcher Mangum

Mangum Economics Fletcher is the founder and CEO of Mangum Economics. He has nearly three decades of experience in quantitative analysis and policy development at both the federal and state level.

Adam Davenport

GTT Adam currently serves as Director of Interconnection Strategy at GTT, the leading Tier 1 IP Networks in the world. Adam started as an engineer and has grown with GTT over the past eight years.

Jezzibell Gilmore

PacketFabric Jezzibell Gilmore is a co-founder and SVP of Business Development at PacketFabric. Prior to PacketFabric, Jezzibell was an early stage employee of AboveNet Communications and Akamai Technologies, and previously served as VP of Operations at RoamData.

Jon Aufderheide

Amazon Web Services Jon currently serves as Principal, Global IP Edge Strategy at Amazon Web Services.  He has been working in various interconnection and network engineering and architecture roles for 20 years, and worked at Google prior to his time at Amazon.

Richard (Ras) Steenbergen

Pitabit Scale Ras founded Petabit Scale to provide business with the knowledge, ability and accessibility to create cost effective, scalable global networks. 

Josh Noll

Netskope Josh currently serves as Director of Network Infrastructure for Netskope. Josh previously held leadership roles in Twitch and Microsoft. Josh also founded DB Transit Consulting where he led and direct startup and strategic operations.

Art Kazmierczak

Telia Carrier Art currently serves as Director Business and Network Development for Telia Carrier. He develops and supports strategic customer business through analysis and evaluation of infrastructure for network expansion and new market development.

Chris McKee

GTT Chris is responsible for the company’s corporate legal requirements, human resources and supplier management. Mr. McKee has over 20 years of broad legal experience in the telecommunications industry.

Eric Rosenberry

NWAX NWAX is the largest IX in the US and in Hillsboro. Eric's goal is to be involved in moving state-of-the-art infrastructure forward within the context of business needs and priorities.

Tad Deriso

Mid-Atlantic Broadband Tad focuses on large business and economic development projects and partnerships with MBC stakeholders. He has been involved with the rural telecommunications industry for over 20 years

Ben Hedges

Linx Ben currently serves as LINX America CEO. With more than 20 years experience, Ben has overseen the International expansion of LINX and the creation of a channel programme for carriers and data centres.

Cole Crawford

Vapor IO Cole is the founder and CEO of Vapor IO. Cole is also the co-founder of the Open 19 Foundation, founding Executive Director of the Open Compute Project, former Chairman of the Open Data Center Alliance and co-founder of OpenStack.

Gary Tarpley

Metro Fiber Networks With over 35 years of industry experience, Gary has earned a reputation for being a leader and innovator in the Dark Fiber industry. His company, MFN, owns and operates 100% underground high-count Dark Fiber network with some subsea components.

Gerardo Bonilla

Telxius Gerardo leads North American sales for Telefonica group and Telxius. He has over 25 years industry experience, through Sales Management and Business Development positions with Telenet Communications, Sprint International, Teleglobe/Tata and Level 3.

Thomas J. Cricchi

SyCom Tom joined SyCom Technologies in 2001 and has served as CEO since 2017. Tom’s prior experience with industry-leading companies include Cisco, Oracle, Parametric Technology Company and System Industries.

Stan Blackwell

Dominion Energy Stan Blackwell is responsible for the management of large customers throughout the Central, Northern, and Western regions of Virginia.

Barbara Boyan

Virginia Commonwealth University Barbara D. Boyan, Ph.D., the Alice T. and William H. Goodwin Jr. Dean of VCU’s College of Engineering, is a nationally acclaimed researcher and entrepreneur. An industry leader and proponent of improving quality of life around the world, Dean Boyan is the co-founder of four companies and serves on the Board of Directors for six other companies

Nick Serfass

Richmond Technology Council Nick serves as the Executive Director of RVA Tech. Prior to this, he served as the Executive Director of the American Institute of Architecture Students as well as the Assistant Director of Internship + Education for the National Council of Architectural Registration Boards.

Bob Fowler

Estes Bob Fowler, CIO of Estes Express Lines, has over 21 years of experience in the IT industry. Some of his specialties include IT Strategy planning, Infrastructure and Datacenter architecture/strategy/management, Business Intelligence and more.

Jarret Appleby

Blackstone Jarett is a high performance executive with more than 25 years of success developing and executing growth and go-to-market strategies for technology platform & IT solutions companies in competitive global markets. 

Deborah Cassidy

PRA Group Deb Cassidy currently serves as the Global Chief Information Officer of PRA Group. Deb is an award winning Technology Innovator and Change Agent designing and delivering technology solutions that reduce total cost of ownership, deliver efficiency and increased productivity.

Tim Beatrice

Charter Communications Tim Beatrice currently serves as Sr Manager, Engineering at Charter Communications where he leads all peering and interconnection efforts.

Vinay Nagpal

Interglobix Vinay is currently President of InterGlobix, a global solutions company focused on the convergence of data centers, terrestrial and subsea fiber.

Alan Bock

Vapor IO Alan runs business development at Vapor IO. He also spent over 17 years with Crown Castle as the Director of Corporate Development before being promoted to VP of Corporate Development and Strategy.

Jeffery Potter

Davenport and Company Jeffrey has over 25 years of experience in Cybersecurity & Technology, spanning the Finance, Healthcare, and Technology industries.