Meet
the Tempest Team
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Jessica
Firestone, Chief Executive Officer
Jessica Firestone is a co-founder and Chief Executive
Officer of Tempest Telecom Solutions. Jessica's career began as a sales and customer support
representative at Century Computer Marketing,
a leading distributor of computer equipment and
spare parts. In 1996, she joined Somera Communications,
a pioneering provider of new and used telecommunications
infrastructure equipment and services as a divisional sales manager responsible for
sales to wireless carriers through out the United
States. From 1996 to 2002, Jessica was promoted several
times, from Manager to Director and finally to Vice
President of Wireless Sales, where she led the company's
largest sales division, managing a team of 27 people,
with responsibility for $97 million revenue. Jessica
left Somera Communications in 2002 to pursue other
opportunities. She then joined Somera Ventures,
a Santa Barbara based private equity investment
firm where she worked with several of their
portfolio companies as a Business Development Advisor.
It was her vision and industry insight that ultimately
led to the launching of Tempest Telecom Solutions. |
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Julie
Lubin, Chief Financial Officer
Julie Lubin is a co-founder and Chief Financial
Officer of Tempest Telecom Solutions. Ms. Lubin
also holds the same title at Somera Capital Management,
where she is responsible for internal financial
management, oversight of investment reporting,
and company planning. She has more than 15
years of experience as a controller, chief financial
officer, business manager, as well as the tax and
financial adviser to many high net worth individuals
and privately owned businesses. She has extensive
experience handling sophisticated multi-million
dollar financial transactions in both the real estate
and non-real estate markets, ranging from sales
and purchases, recapitalizations and reorganizations,
venture capital investments and workouts. Ms. Lubin
served as the Controller and Chief Financial
Officer for Somera Communications, Inc., a worldwide
distributor of telecommunications infrastructure
equipment, where she managed the company.s growth
from start-up to more than $100 million in revenues
in less than four years. She instituted the financial
reporting systems needed to facilitate a significant
investment in the company by a venture capital firm,
leading to the company.s eventual IPO and NASDAQ
listing. |
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Dan Firestone,
Chief Operating Officer
Dan Firestone started his business career in 1978
when was engaged in several small, high-growth private
companies in the computer distribution, real estate,
and manufacturing industries. In 1984, Mr. Firestone
and a partner co-founded Century Computer Marketing,
a distributor of computer products and spare parts,
and served as its Chief Executive Officer until
May 1994. Under Dan's direction, Century Computer
grew from start-up to $40 million in annual revenue
with six offices in four countries before it was
sold in 1994 to a small public company for $32 million.
After spending a year providing management consulting
services and searching for his next project, in
July 1995 Dan and two partners launched Somera Communications,
Inc. (NASDAQ: SMRA), which grew to $220 million
in annual revenue. Dan served as Chief Executive
Officer from 1996 to September 2001, and as Chairman
of the Board from inception until September 2003.
Along the way, Dan was responsible for raising $52.8
million in venture capital, $65 million in debt
financing, and $120 million in the company's initial
public offering in November 1999.
In September 2001, Mr. Firestone stepped down as
Chief Executive Officer of Somera Communications,
Inc. to pursue his own venture investment and business
consulting activities, as a principal and President
of Somera Ventures, LLC, a Private Equity Investment
firm that now holds seven companies in its portfolio.
He sits on the board of, and provides strategic
and operational consulting to, several of his portfolio
companies, including Tempest Telecom Solutions. |
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Gordon
Smith, Vice President, Services
Gordon joined Tempest Telecom Solutions in October
of 2006 to oversee our growing Services portfolio.
Gordon comes to the Tempest Team with 12 years of
Telecommunications Services experience. Prior to
joining Tempest, Gordon served as Vice President
of Services for Somera Communications where he oversaw
Depot Repair, Spares Management, Consulting and
Lifecycle Services. From September 1994 through
October of 2002, Gordon served a variety of executive
roles in Telecom Services companies including COO
of Compass Telecom and President of TDI, Inc. In
his experience, Gordon has overseen teams of more
than 100 employees and P&L’s in excess
of $25M. Gordon holds a B.A.Sc. degree in Civil
Engineering from the University of Waterloo as well
as an MBA from Goizueta Business School (Emory University)
and is a licensed Professional Engineer |
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Dave
Smargon, Vice President of Supply & Sales Operations
Dave Smargon joined Tempest Telecom Solutions in October of
2006 to drive the expansion of our New Products
Distribution Services and Supply strategy. Dave
began his career in 1986 as a Microelectronics Microwave
design engineer at Raytheon Company in Goleta CA,
and was later promoted to Section Manager of the
Receiver design group. Dave then took a job with
Superconductor Technologies as a Transition to Manufacturing
Specialist. He spent nearly 10 years at Superconductor
Technologies in a variety of expanding roles, with
the last 5 years as the Director of Customer Service
and Sales Operations. In this capacity Dave played
a critical role making sure his wireless customers
received high quality service to go along with their
high quality products. Dave brings that focus on
quality to his new position at Tempest to facilitate
successful growth. As Director of New Product Distribution
Services and Supply he will be responsible for identifying
the best new products available in the Telecommunications
industry and bringing those products into Tempest’s
portfolio of offerings to its customers. Dave received
both a BS and an MS in Electrical Engineering from
the University of Massachusetts in Amherst. |
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Bill
Peardon, Vice President of Sales, Strategic Relationships
Bill joined Tempest Telecom Solutions in July of 2005, as
Wireless Sales Manager, with an extensive background
in sales, marketing and procurement within the telecommunications
Industry. His depth of knowledge and deep commitment
to servicing companies and individuals on the front
lines of this rapidly changing industry, makes him
a welcome addition to our growing team. Bill has
been serving wireless telecommunications carriers
since 1997, first at SRS Industries, and later at
American Communications. |
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Mike
Peters, Vice President of Sales, Wireless Division
Mike Peters joined Tempest Telecom Solutions in August 2005
as a Sales Director focusing on the Regional Wireless
Carrier space. Mike began his sales career in telecom
sales at Somera Communications in 1996, where he
was primarily focused on the Rural Wireless service
providers. Then from 1999 to 2003, as a Group Sales
Manager focused on the Rural Wireless Market, Mike
led his team to $23 million dollars in annual sales
revenue. In 2003, Mike was promoted to Sales Director
leading a team of 8 sales people to become the highest
revenue producing team in the company. During this
time Mike successfully negotiated several multi-million dollar vendor contracts to provide carriers
with complete network build-out support, utilizing
a combination of refurbished and new telecom
equipment from a variety of vendors, saving his
customers millions of dollars. |
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Margaret Barthmaier – Director, Global Supply
Margaret began her term at Tempest in November 2005 as the Director of Supply. She had the specific mission of establishing procurement relationships with domestic wireless carriers. In her current position as Director of Global Supply, Margaret will be expanding this role to identify strategic and critical equipment supply channels in both wireless and emerging carrier markets in the US and overseas. She will leverage her strong market experience and extensive global contacts to strengthen Tempest’s inventory offering and supporting its customers’ network growth and maintenance projects.
Margaret’s introduction to telecommunications began at Somera Communications in 2000 where she became the Director of International Procurement, managing numerous strategic international projects and large scale network infrastructure acquisitions. In 2004, Margaret became Director of Sales and Supply for Shields Environmental, a UK-based telecommunications firm. Prior to her telecommunications experience, Margaret spent four years managing logistics for a multinational metal trading firm conducting business in over 15 countries. Margaret holds degrees from Bates College (B.A-Political Science) and the University of Montana (B.F.A-Photography).
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Ben Collins – Director, Microwave Solutions Sales
Ben joined Tempest in March of 2006 as an Account Executive tasked with finding new opportunities and developing strategic relationships with top companies in the Wireless industry. His focus now is to lead Tempest’s Spectrum Clearing effort, working primarily with the top AWS license winners, such as T-Mobile and SpectrumCo. Prior to Tempest, Ben worked as an Inside Sales Manager for Green Hills Software, an industry leader in real-time embedded software development. Ben’s customer first approach has been a valuable addition to the Tempest team and he is well received on all projects he’s been a part of. |
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Dave Root – Sales Director, Private Network Accounts
Dave joined Tempest in 2008 as a Sales Director, focused on expanding microwave solutions for government, enterprise & private network operators. Dave has worked with the Tempest management team for over 15 years, and is directly responsible for developing new business across various market segments in both the high technology & telecommunications fields. While at Somera, Dave was promoted to develop the company’s category leadership position with the Regional Bell Operating Companies (RBOC’s), and successfully converted 3 of the largest operating companies representing over $100 billion in annual capital expenditures from transactional customers to contract based programs. These programs drove predictable revenue streams which generated over $100 million in new business and increased gross profit margins by over 40%. Dave was instrumental in developing Somera’s first regionally based national sales team as well as the first regional sales office in Chicago. Dave has lived in Santa Barbara for the last 10 years, and relocated with his family to Tacoma, WA in 2007, where he currently resides |
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John McGonagle, Group Sales Manager
John McGonagle joined Tempest Telecom Solutions in July 2006 as an Account Executive primarily focused on sales, services, and solutions of national ILEC, CLEC, and RBOC accounts base. John began his career in telecom sales as an Account Manager at American Communications in June of 2003, where he was primarily focused in the wireline hardware carrier space. With his experience, market knowledge, and passion for the business, John has been able to differentiate himself with his customers. His intention is to provide his customers a turn-key solution and save their company time and money. John is continuing to maintain his customer’s networks with services, repair, surplus management, and hardware sales. |
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Arlene
Moody, Group Sales Manager
Arlene Moody joined Tempest Telecom Solutions January
of 2006 and oversees a team as a Group Sales Manager
of the Wireline Group. Arlene began her sales career
at DJC and sold computer peripheral equipment to
Fortune 500 companies. After DJC was acquired, she
worked for Century Computer Marketing where she
sold computer replacement parts to mulit-vendor
repair houses and self-maintaining end users. In
1995 she joined Somera Communications as an Account
Executive, then became a Group Sales Manager leading
her team to leading revenue numbers and great team
spirit. Arlene is currently leading a sales and
logistics team and enjoying the continued increase
wireline sales of both new and refurbished equipment
as well as repair and other services related sales. |
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