Trillion Management Team

Bear Poth - President and CEO

Kevin Bethke - Chief Operating Officer

Angela Pierce - Chief Financial Officer

Scott Smyth - VP of Legal & Regulatory

Ken Proud - VP of Construction & Engineering

Renaye Thornborrow - VP of Marketing

Roger Clague - VP and General Manager

Larry Hamilton - VP of Business Development

Kristy Killough - Controller

Jim Dovey - Chairman of the Board

Gene Gabbard - Director

Stephanie McCoy - Director

Bear Poth
President and CEO

Mr. Poth is the founding President and CEO of Trillion and has an extensive entrepreneurial and operations background in the telecommunications industry. Prior to his current role, Mr. Poth served as President and CEO of ClearSource, Inc., a facilities-based competitive broadband company providing telephone, cable TV and high-speed Internet services to markets in Texas. At ClearSource, Mr. Poth raised $170 million in capital and grew the company from its inception to over 50,000 connections before merging ClearSource with an affiliate company creating the largest competitive bundled service provider in Texas. Previously, Mr. Poth was with ChoiceCom, a facilities-based CLEC and long-haul fiber company operating in Austin, Corpus Christi, Dallas, Houston and San Antonio. As the first employee of ChoiceCom, Mr. Poth structured, negotiated and executed a partnership between a large public utility holding company and a competitive local exchange carrier. Mr. Poth served as the senior executive in charge of sales, marketing, customer service and business development. Before ChoiceCom, Mr. Poth served in a variety of leadership roles with the Central and South West Corporation, Deloitte & Touche and Chrysler Technologies Airborne Systems. Mr. Poth Serves on the Engineering Advisory Board of The University of Texas. Mr. Poth received a Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering and a Master of Business Administration from The University of Texas.

Back to the top

Kevin Bethke
Chief Operating Officer

Mr. Bethke brings 20 plus years of sales and marketing leadership in both start-ups and large companies. Prior to joining Trillion Partners, Mr. Bethke was the CEO of Interactive Video Technologies, a venture backed video content creation and distribution ASP targeted at K-12 and corporations, where he led the company through a successful acquisition. Mr. Bethke has also served as CEO for Hire.com, a venture-backed talent supply management ASP provider, President and COO and VP of World Wide Sales and Marketing for Interact Commerce Corporation, a venture-backed market leading CRM software solution, and VP Sales for QAD Incorporated, a leading provider of ERP solutions. During his tenure at each of these companies, the companies achieved well above industry normal growth rates including 100%+ year over year revenue growth. Mr. Bethke has been a member of management teams that have lead to two companies successful IPO’s and two companies successful acquisitions. Mr. Bethke has an MBA from Northern Illinois University and a Bachelor of Science from Southern Illinois University.

Back to the top

Angela Pierce

Chief Financial Officer

Angela brings 14 years of corporate finance, accounting, and banking experience to Trillion, with 10 in the broadband and telecommunications industry. Most recently she served as Vice President of Financial Planning and Treasury for Convio, a venture backed software as a service company for nonprofit organizations. Prior to joining Convio, she served as the Vice President of Financial Planning and Treasury for Broadwing Communications, where she had a key role in raising $365M in capital and led the company’s M&A activity. During her nine year tenure with the company she also managed revenue assurance, revenue and cost accounting, budgeting, management reporting, and investor relation functions. Prior to Broadwing, she was Controller of Web America Networks, a Dallas based internet service provider, with more than 60,000 subscribers. Earlier in her career she was an Associate at The Bank of Tokyo Mitsubishi and Deutsche Financial Services, supporting senior investment grade and middle market commercial debt for the banks respectively. She has a Bachelors degree in Finance and an MBA from the University of Texas at Austin.

Back to the top

Scott Smyth
VP of Legal and Regulatory

Mr. Smyth has over 13 years of legal experience in the telecommunications and broadband industries. He began work in this field with the Public Utility Commission of Texas and the Office of Attorney General of Texas, representing the public interest and state government in the telecommunications area. He was then responsible for the regulatory and legislative activities in several states for two national competitive local exchange carriers. He then performed general counsel and regulatory duties for the successful facilities-based broadband company, ClearSource. Mr. Smyth earned his bachelor’s degree from the University of Texas at Austin and his JurisDoctorate degree from St. Mary’s University School of Law in San Antonio. He has served on the board of directors of several telecommunications trade associations. He was board certified by the Texas Board of Legal Specialization in the field of administrative law from 1994 to 1999. Mr. Smyth has been an attorney licensed in the state of Texas for over 16 years.

Back to the top

Ken Proud
VP of Construction & Engineering

Mr. Proud has over 35 years of experience in various broadband industries. He began his career as a district manager for R.F. Brown and Company in Delaware where he managed cable television construction activities. Mr. Proud also worked for nine years for Paragon Cable in San Antonio, Texas, where he served as a construction supervisor, project manager, and district manager. As a senior director of capital projects and materials management for Adelphia Communications Corporation in Coudersport, Pennsylvania, Mr. Proud was involved in the upgrading and rebuilding of approximately 20,000 miles of cable. Most recently, Mr. Proud was Vice President of Operations, Construction and Engineering with ClearSource, where he successfully constructed over 1,200 miles of plant capable of serving 140,000 passings. Mr. Proud maintained overall Profit & Loss responsibility for the Waco, Corpus Christi, and Midland/Odessa markets. He drove each market EBITDA positive prior to the merger of ClearSource with an affiliate company. Mr. Proud obtained a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration from Pennsylvania State University and a MBA from Our Lady of the Lake University of San Antonio.

Back to the top

Renaye Thornborrow

VP of Marketing

Renaye Thornborrow brings 15 years of experience in technology marketing for both early stage and Fortune 50 companies. Ms. Thornborrow previously served as Trillion’s Director of Product Marketing and Management. Prior to joining Trillion Partners, Ms. Thornborrow served as a Senior Product Manager for NetSolve Incorporated where she helped create and grow the managed services business for Cisco Voice over IP. Success of the VoIP managed service offering lead to Cisco’s acquisition of NetSolve Inc. in 2004. She continued with Cisco for 8 months before transitioning to Trillion in 2005. Ms. Thornborrow also served as the Marketing Manager for Motorola’s Advanced Microcontroller Division Software Unit and as a Computer Systems Engineer for IBM. Renaye holds an MBA from the University of Texas in Austin and a Bachelor of Science in Computer Science from Texas A&M University.

Back to the top

Roger Clague

VP and General Manager

Roger brings 30 plus years of cutting edge technology leadership in both the public and private sectors. In his early career Roger played leadership roles in multi billion dollar public sector R&D projects designing and deploying mobile digital broadband wide area networks. In the private sector Roger was COO of IDK Inc and CEO of the Merlin Group Ltd, with focus on management process re-engineering through technology. He moved back to the public sector to follow his passion for education, as CIO for the Grant School District (CA) and more latterly as CIO for Oakland Public Schools (CA). Continuing with his commitment to public service Roger went on to be IT Division Chief (CIO) for the Department of Human Assistance, in Sacramento, CA, before moving back to the private sector, but still with a clear education focus, with Trillion. Roger is a graduate of The Royal Military Academy Sandhurst, (UK’s equivalent of West Point); his professional education and training at Military Colleges is to BSc in Digital Communications and MBA in Technology levels. He has held many Board of Director level positions for primarily non-profit organizations such as the American Cancer Society, NationalTeacher.Org and MicroComputers in Schools, Inc.

Back to the top

Larry Hamilton

Vice President of Buisness Development

Larry Hamilton has more than 24 years of successful growth and accomplishment in communications and electrical technologies, including major public company positions as Senior Vice President and General Manager. Mr. Hamilton has proven P&L background for enhancing shareholder value in technology companies through internal as well as external acquisition growth. Mr. Hamilton served as the SVP of Sales and Marketing for Carrier Access, SVP/GM for TeleTech Services, SVP/ GM for RELTEC/Marconi, and President/Owner of COMEC Electrical. Mr. Hamilton has a BS and an MBA from Northern Illinois University.

Back to the top

Kristy Killough

Controller

Kristy Killough brings 7 years of experience in accounting for private sector technology and service-based companies. Ms. Killough has previously served as Trillion’s Director of Accounting and Assistant Controller. Prior to joining Trillion, Kristy served as the Business Manager for BLRM, Inc where she was responsible for managing all accounting functions for that organization. Ms. Killough received an MBA from St. Edward’s University in Austin and a Bachelor of Business Administration from The University of Texas in Austin. Ms. Killough has completed the requirements to become a licensed Certified Public Accountant and is currently sitting for the exam.

Back to the top

Jim Dovey
Chairman of the Board

Mr. Dovey is an Investment Director with Meritage Private Equity Funds, a Denver-based fund with $475 million of committed capital under management. Previously, Mr. Dovey developed and managed several successful communications companies, including Meritage portfolio company Completel, where he was the co-founding Chairman and CEO. He was the founding CEO of TeleWest, a communications joint venture of TCI International and USWest in the United Kingdom. Under his leadership, TeleWest grew into the premier cable access provider of bundled telephone and video services over its fiber optic networks, leading the industry’s competitive efforts against British Telecom.

Back to the top

Gene Gabbard
Director

With 30 plus years of experience managing and serving on the Board of Fortune 100 as well as smaller companies, Mr. Gabbard is a recognized industry leader. Mr. Gabbard was the CEO of Telecom USA until it merged with MCI in the early 1990s whereupon he served as MCI’s CFO for several of its pre-WorldCom years. Throughout his professional career in telecommunications, Mr. Gabbard has acquired numerous patents in the field of digital communications and has published several articles in trade and professional publications.

Back to the top

Stephanie McCoy
Director

Stephanie McCoy is a Managing Director with Meritage Funds and has more than 16 years of direct investing, investment banking, strategic planning and accounting experience. Ms. McCoy co-founded the corporate finance practice of Arthur Andersen in Moscow, Russia and later worked in investment banking with The Wallach Company. Ms. McCoy received an accounting degree from Texas Christian University and an MBA with high distinction from Harvard. She currently serves as a director of Meritage portfolio companies Trillion Partners (a company she co-founded) and Atreus Systems, and she also serves on the Entrepreneurial Advisory Board for the Silicon Flatirons Center for Law, Technology, and Entrepreneurship.

Back to the top