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Frontline is led by a team of cellular industry pioneers, Silicon Valley entrepreneurs and leading wireless technology experts:
Haynes Griffin, Chief Executive Officer
Haynes Griffin, CEO of Frontline Wireless, LLC, has been associated with a number of successful entrepreneurial ventures. Mr. Griffin was previously the founding CEO and president of Vanguard Cellular Systems, Inc. Before being acquired by AT&T, Vanguard, based in Greensboro, North Carolina, was one of the largest independent non-wireline cellular telephone companies in the country with operational cellular systems in 29 markets. Mr. Griffin is also past chairman of the board of the Cellular Telecommunications Industry Association (CTIA).
As the sole representative from the cellular industry, Mr. Griffin was appointed by the White House to the United States Advisory Council on the National Information Infrastructure to advise the administration on information super-highway policy.
Mr. Griffin serves as a trustee for The Center for Creative Leadership, one of the world's leading organizations devoted to the study of leadership, creativity, and effective management. He is also the past North Carolina State Chairman for the Young Presidents’ Organization.
Mr. Griffin is a graduate of Woodberry Forest School, where he serves as chairman of the board of trustees, and of Princeton University, where he has served on the Alumni Council Executive Committee.
Janice Obuchowski, Chairman
Janice Obuchowski, founder and President of Freedom Technologies, has held several leadership positions, both in the United States government and in the private sector. Mrs. Obuchowski served as the United States Ambassador to the World Radiocommunication Conference 2003 in Geneva, Switzerland. She successfully concluded negotiations on 48 agenda items, securing international spectrum allocations for numerous technologies, including WiFi and GPS. She also served as Assistant Secretary for Communications and Information at the Department of Commerce, leading the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) under President George H.W. Bush.
Mrs. Obuchowski also serves or has served on several corporate Boards of Directors. Her current public Board Memberships are Orbital Sciences Corporation, CSG Systems, Inc., and Stratos Global. She chairs the CSG Corporate Governance Committee, the Orbital Human Resources and Compensation Committee, and the Stratos Compensation Committee. Earlier in her career, Mrs. Obuchowski had responsibility for all international government affairs for NYNEX (now Verizon). Mrs. Obuchowski also held several positions at the FCC, including Senior Advisor to the Chairman.
Mrs. Obuchowski earned a J.D. from the Georgetown University Law Center where she was an Editor of the Law Journal and a B.A. with Honors from Wellesley College.
Reed Hundt, Vice Chairman
Reed is a principal of Charles Ross Partners, a private investor and business advisory service. He serves as an independent adviser the Blackstone Group, a private equity firm. He serves as a member of the Management Advisory Board at the Yale School of Management. Mr. Hundt served four years as Chairman of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), from 1993 to 1997.
Mr. Hundt is the author of, "You Say You Want A Revolution: A Story of Information Age Politics." (Yale University Press, 2000) and "In China's Shadow: The Crisis of American Entrepreneurship," (Yale University Press, 2006). He has also been Co-Chairman of The Forum on Communications and Society at The Aspen Institute.
He is a magna cum laude graduate of Yale College, earning a Bachelor of Arts with Exceptional Distinction in History (1969). He is also a graduate of Yale Law School (1974) where he was a member of the executive board of the Yale Law Journal. He clerked for the late Chief Judge Harrison L. Winter of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, and is a member of the District of Columbia, Maryland, and California bars. Prior to his position as Chairman of the FCC, Mr. Hundt was a partner in the Washington, DC office of Latham & Watkins, a national and international law firm.
John Leibovitz, Executive Vice President, Business Development
John Leibovitz is a co-founder of Frontline Wireless and, as EVP of Business Development, helps structure relationships with strategic and financial partners. Previously, he was a consultant in the media and telecommunications industries with McKinsey & Company, a global management consulting firm. At McKinsey, John focused on strategy and operations for leading mobile operators, television networks, and cable MSOs. He advised senior management on a range of important issues related to wireless, such as alliances/joint ventures, spectrum auctions, next-generation network technology, mobile content distribution, and operations support systems. He also co-founded two high-tech startups prior to Frontline.
John received a J.D. from Yale Law School, where he was awarded the prize for best student contribution to the Yale Law Journal and won the university-wide entrepreneurship competition. He holds an M.Phil from Cambridge University and a B.A. Summa Cum Laude from the University of Pennsylvania. John is a member of the New York Bar.
Scott Wiener, Senior Vice President, Partner Development
Scott Wiener brings over 15 years of strategic and management experience in telecommunications to Frontline Wireless and, as Senior Vice President of Partner Development, is focused on developing public safety and commercial relationships. Previously, Scott was Vice President of Marketing & Strategic Pricing at Sprint Nextel Corporation managing the company's postpaid wireless product pricing programs with overall marketing responsibility for service revenue planning, customer & competitive pricing research, consumer promotions performance measurement, business/public sector program development, and regulatory marketing.
At Nextel Communications Inc., Scott served as Marketing Vice President overseeing pricing strategy, promotions analysis, and segment program development. Scott played an integral role in developing and launching the Nextel-GSA purchasing program marketed to local, state and federal government wireless users.
He received an M.B.A from New York University, Stern School of Business and a B.A. Summa Cum Laude from Brandeis University.
Dr. Stagg Newman, Chief Technologist
Stagg Newman specializes in the analysis of issues that involve the confluence of technology, regulation, and business issues. He focuses on the impact of broadband wireless for both commercial deployments and public safety agencies.
From 2000 to 2005, Dr. Newman served McKinsey and Company as Senior Telecom Expert. He continues to represent McKinsey on the Technology Advisory Council of the U.S. Federal Communications Commission, where he led the Broadband Working Group that assessed broadband access platforms and recently presented “The State of Fixed and Mobile Broadband Wireless Technology – The Next Half Decade”.
Prior to joining McKinsey, Dr. Newman was Chief Technologist at the FCC for two years where he advised the Commissioners and senior staffers on strategic technology issues. He championed the “unregulation” of the Internet, an Internet friendly spectrum policy and policies that encouraged technology innovation and investment.
Dr. Newman started his telecommunications career with Bell Labs in 1976. From 1994 to 1997 he was Vice President, Network Technology and Architecture, Applied Research at Bellcore where he managed the optical networking, wireless, and network access research programs. He received his B.S. from Davidson College and his M.S. and Ph.D. from Cornell in mathematics.
Robert Pavlak, Vice President, Engineering
Bob brings 30 years of experience to Frontline Wireless in the development and deployment of wide area network wireless voice and IP products. For more than 20 years he was with Bell Laboratories, where he managed the development of various network products, including AT&T’s first high capacity digital cellular switching system, GSM base station, and operations & maintenance center. He led the system engineering of GSM networks in the Middle East, and he built the 3G UMTS technology and engineering team in the UK for Lucent Technologies.
Early in his career Bob was active in amateur radio communications for civil emergency preparedness, and at Bell Labs he managed system engineering in the design of a nationwide emergency telecommunications system. Most recently, over the past eight years, Bob was the Vice President of Engineering at three startup companies, where he managed the engineering of Level 3’s European IP network, the development of real-time prepaid billing system software for mobile networks at Megisto Systems, and the development of WiMAX broadband wireless base stations and subscriber equipment at SOMA Networks.
Bob received a B.S. in Electrical Engineering at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, and an M.S. of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from the University of California, Berkeley.
Richard C. Rowlenson, Vice President & General Counsel
Rich has more than 30 years experience in various segments of the communications industry. He served for seven years as Vice President and General Counsel of Gemini Networks, a facilities-based provider of broadband services in Connecticut. He was Chair of the Regulatory Committee of the Broadband Service Providers Association. Earlier, Rich was Vice President–Law for AT&T Wireless.
For 12 years, he served as an executive officer and General Counsel of Vanguard Cellular, one of the largest independent cellular carriers in the United States. He served as Vanguard’s representative on the CTIA Regulatory Committee. He began his career in a communications law firm in Washington, D.C., rising to partner. He is a longtime member of the Federal Communications Bar Association and has testified before numerous state public utility commissions and legislative committees.
Rich received his J. D. from Georgetown University Law Center and his undergraduate degree from Georgetown University. He is a member of the District of Columbia Bar.
Chris Helzer, Senior Director, Devices and RF Engineering
Chris Helzer brings over 15 years of technical leadership in wireless communications, product development, and software development to Frontline Wireless. As Senior Director of Devices and RF Engineering for Frontline, he is leading efforts to develop requirements and strategy for Frontline’s device ecosystem, as well as working on network architecture and modeling efforts.
Previously, Chris was a Director of Radio Access Network and Subscriber Unit Architecture at Nextel Communications. In this role, he led a team responsible for handset architecture, RFIs and RFPs for new handsets, large-scale trialing of OFDMA PC cards, and formation of chipset and supplier strategies. In addition, he led a team responsible for new technologies and features deployed in the existing radio network; for the evaluation of EVDO, f-OFDM, and other systems, RFI and RFP activities for next-generation systems; and for driving vendor technology roadmaps, including enhancements to iDEN handset and radio infrastructure technology from Motorola.
Prior to Nextel, Chris has been a product manager for a tool for monitoring and reporting the performance of wireless networks, an RF engineering consultant designing much of Nextel’s iDEN network in California, and a software developer working on medical billing systems and custom database applications.
Chris holds a B.S. in Electrical Engineering and a B.S. in Physics from the University of Maryland, College Park, graduating with honors in both degrees.
Doug Hyslop, Senior Director, Radio Access Network Engineering
Doug Hyslop has over 15 years of experience in designing, deploying and operating wireless networks, and researching air interface technologies. At Frontline Wireless, he is focused on radio access network (RAN) technology evaluation and preparing deployment and operations plans for the nationwide wireless broadband network.
As Director of Next Generation Access Technologies for Sprint Nextel, he led the RAN technology selection for Sprint’s 2.5 GHz band, through the full cycle of RFIs, RFPs, and vendor contracts. He directed Nextel’s technology trial and network operations for a large-scale OFDMA trial in Raleigh, NC, including management of vendor’s performance in network operations center (NOC) support, fault and performance management, traffic engineering, maintenance and system testing.
Prior to Raleigh, Doug directed Nextel’s base station hardware and software development program with Motorola, delivering capacity and operability improvements through five formal system releases.
In the early days of Nextel, Doug designed, deployed and launched the first iDEN systems in California, and directed the radio frequency (RF) engineering department for Nextel’s Houston, San Antonio and Austin markets. Following a move to Nextel’s corporate headquarters, Doug developed and standardized national guidelines for RF design, optimization and capacity planning.
Doug received a B.S. in Electrical Engineering from the University of Virginia.
Tom Peters, Senior Director, Public Safety & Regulatory Engineering
Tom Peters, who has more than 15 years in the wireless industry, most recently directed Sprint Nextel’s spectrum and interference team, providing technical direction to the company’s government affairs operations, including guidance in regulatory issues and spectrum acquisitions. He also headed a team responsible for developing capacity models, simulating next-generation technology performance and delivering coverage and capacity projections for next-gen build-out plans to the executive team.
Throughout his six-year career at Sprint Nextel, he focused on next generation broadband technologies, and led the build-out of its next-gen testing lab where technologies such as FLASH-OFDM, TD-CDMA, and WiMAX were extensively tested. At Frontline, Tom leverages this combination of experience to assess the technical needs for public safety and evaluate the resulting impact on the public/private partnership.
Prior to joining Nextel, Tom was a director at LCC International where he managed RF engineering projects for wireless operators worldwide. In this role, Tom spent a large amount of time overseas, working in São Paulo, Brazil to help LCC increase its market position in Latin America, and later directing LCC’s RF engineering operations in Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) from London.
Tom graduated from Virginia Tech with a B.S. in Aerospace Engineering.
Noah Kindler, Director, Program Management
Noah Kindler, a former consultant at McKinsey & Company, brings several years of experience consulting with wireless carriers throughout Europe and as part of the European telecom practice where he focused on operations and strategy. He recently led a large project focused on developing the new operating model for wireless and wireline carriers in Europe.
Prior to McKinsey he led product management at Mspect, a wireless internet startup focused on performance and reliability applications within the mobile wireless industry. He also worked at Gabriel Venture Partners, working with early stage communications and networking companies.
Noah has a B.S., Computer Science, from Stanford University and an M.B.A. (with distinction) from Harvard Business School. He is also a published author on computer science careers.
Frontline's Partners
James Barksdale, Barksdale Management Corporation
A native of Mississippi, Mr. Barksdale is President and CEO of philanthropic investment company Barksdale Management Corporation. Immediately after Hurricane Katrina, Mr. Barksdale was asked by Governor Haley Barbour to chair the Governor’s Commission on the Recovery, Rebuilding and Renewal of Mississippi. He served as CEO of Netscape from January 1995 until the company merged with America Online in 1999, after which he joined Time Warner's Board. Prior to Netscape, Mr. Barksdale was CEO of AT&T Wireless Services (formerly McCaw Cellular Communications). From 1992 until 1994 he was President and COO of McCaw Cellular Communications. From 1983 to 1992, he served as Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer for Federal Express. Mr. Barksdale sits on the boards of Time Warner; Federal Express; Mayo Foundation; Sun Microsystems, Inc., and TechNet. He also served as co-chair of the Markle Foundation Task Force on National Security in the Information Age, which published their reports, including "Creating a Trusted Information Network for Homeland Security."
Vanu Bose, Vanu Inc.
Vanu Bose is the President and CEO of Vanu, Inc., a software radio company based in Cambridge, MA. Vanu, Inc.’s product, the Anywave® Multi-Mode Base Station, was the first wireless device to be FCC approved as a software-defined radio. Dr. Bose earned all of his degrees from MIT, receiving his Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (EECS) in 1999. As a graduate student, Dr. Bose worked on the MIT SpectrumWare project at the MIT lab for Computer Science, an effort to bring a software oriented approach to wireless communication and distributed signal processing. There, he performed the software radio research that would later evolve into Vanu, Inc. Prior to graduate school, Dr. Bose developed a technical teaching curriculum and onboard medical, computer and satellite communications systems for a DC-10 flying hospital for Project Orbis, a private, non-profit organization dedicated to fighting world blindness. He currently serves on the Board of Directors for Jumpstart, a non-profit focused on early childhood literacy, and is also a member of the Board of Overseers for the Boston Museum of Science.
L. John Doerr, Kleiner Perkins Caulfield & Byers
Since its founding in 1972, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers has backed entrepreneurs in 475 ventures, including AOL, Align, Amazon.com, Citrix, Compaq Computer, Electronic Arts, Genentech, Genomic Health, Google, Hybritech, IDEC Pharmaceuticals, Intuit, Juniper Networks, Netscape, Lotus, Nuvasive, Sun Microsystems, Symantec, VeriSign and Xilinx. KPCB portfolio companies employ more than 250,000 people. More than 150 of the firm's portfolio companies have gone public. Many other ventures have achieved success through mergers and acquisitions. KPCB is broadly invested in life sciences, communications, information, life sciences and green technology. Mr. Doerr has been a Partner since 1980 at Kleiner, Perkins, Caufield & Byers. As a veteran Silicon Valley investor with international renown, he has directed venture capital funding to Amazon, Compaq, Google, Intuit, Netscape, Macromedia, Sun Microsystems and Symantec. Mr. Doerr holds a Masters of Business Administration degree from Harvard Business School, a Bachelor and Masters of Science degree in electrical engineering from Rice University, and several patents for computer memory devices.
Mark Fowler, Businessman and Investor
Mark Fowler was named Chairman of the Federal Communications Commission in May of 1981 and served until April of 1987. He was the longest-serving Chairman of the Commission. During this period, he led a team that implemented a deregulatory program applying President Reagan’s philosophy to communications and it resulted in the deregulation of virtually all sectors of the telecommunications industry. In particular, Mr. Fowler repealed regulations that impinged on the broadcast media and electronic press. He advocated the elimination of the Fairness Doctrine, while simultaneously advocating opening up historical telecommunications monopolies to new entrants and competition. He instituted a market-based model for telecommunications, which has been followed and emulated in many countries around the world. Mr. Fowler graduated from the University of Florida Law School and subsequently worked for the firm of Smith and Pepper in Washington, D.C. In 1976, Mr. Fowler started the law firm of Fowler and Meyers. He was Communications Counsel for then-Governor Reagan’s Presidential campaign in 1975-1976. In 1979 and 1980, Mr. Fowler served as Communications Counsel to then-Governor Reagan during his Presidential campaign and represented him with regard to network time and other communications issues. From 1987 to 1994, Mr. Fowler was senior telecommunications counsel to the law firm of Latham and Watkins. Mr. Fowler co-founded several telecommunications companies, including PowerFone Inc., a wireless carrier, and UniSite, one of the first wireless communications tower companies. Mr. Fowler has served on the boards of directors of several public companies.
Ram Shriram, Sherpalo Ventures
Ram Shriram started Sherpalo in January, 2000, with the goal of applying his wealth of operating and company building experience to promising early stage ventures. Immediately prior to founding Sherpalo, Ram served as an officer of Amazon.com working for Jeff Bezos, founder & CEO. Ram came to Amazon.com in August, 1998, when Amazon acquired Junglee, an online comparison shopping firm of which Ram was president. While at Amazon, Ram helped grow the customer base during its early high growth phase in 1998/1999. Before Junglee and Amazon, Ram was a member of the Netscape executive team, joining them in 1994, before they shipped products or posted revenue. He drove the many partnerships and channels that Netscape employed to get massive distribution for its browser and server products during those now legendary early days of the Internet. Ram is a founding board member of Google Inc. and 247customer.com as well as Frontline Wireless. Ram also serves on the boards of Plaxo, Zazzle.com, PodShow and Prana Studios. Ram serves on the advisory board of Naukri.com, a leading classfieds site in India which has leading marketplaces in jobs, matrimony and real estate serving the Indian market.
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The first responders of today live in a world transformed by the 9/11 attacks. Because no one believes that every conceivable form of attack can be prevented, civilians and first responders will again find themselves on the front lines. We must plan for that eventuality.”
