Management Biographies

Michael T. Prior, is our President and Chief Executive Officer. Mr. Prior joined us in 2003 as our Chief Financial Officer and Treasurer. Before joining us, Mr. Prior was a partner with Q Advisors LLC, a Denver-based investment banking and financial advisory firm focused on the telecommunications sector. From 1999 to 2002, he headed corporate development for LighTrade, Inc., a telecommunications infrastructure provider. From 1998 to 1999, Mr. Prior was a member of ComSpace Development LLC, a seed investment concern in the communications industry and an early investor in LighTrade. From 1992 to 1998, Mr. Prior was a corporate lawyer with Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton in London and New York and Perkins Coie LLP in Seattle. Mr. Prior received a B.A. degree from Vassar College and a J.D. degree summa cum laude from Brooklyn Law School. He is the son of Cornelius B. Prior, Jr., Chairman of our Board.

Justin D. Benincasa, is our Chief Financial Officer and Treasurer. Prior to joining us in May 2006, Mr. Benincasa was a Principal at Windover Development, LLC since 2004. From 1998 to 2004, he was Executive Vice President of Finance and Administration at American Tower Corporation, a leading wireless and broadcast communications infrastructure company, where he managed finance and accounting, treasury, IT, tax, lease administration and property management. Prior to that, he was Vice President and Corporate Controller at American Radio Systems Corporation and held accounting and finance positions at American Cablesystems Corporation. Mr. Benincasa holds an M.B.A. degree from Bentley College and a B.A. degree from the University of Massachusetts

William F. Kreisher joined the Company in August 2007 as Senior Vice President, Corporate Development.   Prior to joining ATN, Mr. Kreisher had been Vice President—Corporate Development at Cingular Wireless (now AT&T Mobility) since 2004.  He had been part of the corporate development team at Cingular since its formation and spent five years at Bell South before that as a Director of Finance, the acting Chief Financial Officer at its broadband and video division, and as a senior manager in its mergers and acquisitions group.  Mr. Kreisher is a twenty-year veteran of the telecommunications industry, having also worked with MCI Telecommunications and Equant.  Mr. Kreisher holds a Masters in Business Administration from Fordham University and a Bachelor of Arts degree from the Catholic University of America. 

Douglas J. Minster joined the Company in 2003 as Vice President and General Counsel. Before ATN, Doug was VP, External Affairs, at LightTrade, Inc., and headed corporate development at IP Radio, Inc., a wireless broadband service. He was part of the founding team and Senior Legal Advisor at Time Warner Telecommunications, and founded a satellite radio company, developing the regulatory foundation for the satellite radio service. Doug began his career as an attorney at the FCC, later joining the former Chairman of the FCC at Patrick Communications as an advisor on domestic and international regulatory and legal issues. He has a B.S. from Ithaca College and a J.D. from The Catholic University Columbus School of Law.

John P. Audet joined the Company in 2006 as Vice President - Financial Analysis and Planning, after serving as a consultant and advisor to the Company for three years.  Prior to his relationship with ATN, he held executive finance positions with a number of start-up telecommunications companies.  Mr. Audet was also a Senior Consultant with BIA Financial Network, Inc, a financial and appraisal Consultancy to the Media and Telecommunications Industry where he participated in formal appraisals of businesses and assets worth in excess of over $2 billion.  Early in his career, John was a principal in a specialized engineering consultancy that designed and built over two dozen of the first cellular radio systems in the United States.  He is a Summa Cum Laude graduate of the University of Maryland, University College with a B.S. in Finance & Technology & Management.

Andrew S. Fienberg joined the Company in 2005, as the Chief Accounting Officer. Previously, he was a Divisional Controller for Pegasus Satellite Television, Inc., a re-seller of DirecTV services throughout rural America. Mr. Fienberg also held managerial positions, including Corporate Controller, for iBasis, Inc., a publicly traded provider of international Voice-Over-Internet-Protocol (VoIP) telecommunications services. Prior to iBasis, Mr. Fienberg was with Iron Mountain Incorporated, a provider of data storage services and spent a number of years as an auditor at BDO Seidman, LLP in Boston, Massachusetts. He has a B.S. in Accountancy from Bentley College and is a Certified Public Accountant.

Director Biographies

Cornelius B. Prior, Jr., is the Chairman of our Board of Directors. He served as our Chief Executive Officer and Chairman of the Board from 1998 through December 2005, at which time he retired as Chief Executive Officer. Mr. Prior was a managing director and stockholder of Kidder, Peabody & Co. Incorporated, where he directed the Telecommunications Finance Group. A former Naval Officer and Fulbright Scholar, Mr. Prior started his career as an attorney with Sullivan & Cromwell in New York. A former Trustee of Holy Cross College and member of the Visiting Committee to Harvard Law School, he was the Chairman of CANTO, the Caribbean Association of National Telecommunication Organizations. He is also the Treasurer and member of the Executive Committee of CCAA (Caribbean and Central American Action) and the father of Michael T. Prior, our President and Chief Executive Officer. He earned his legal degree from The Harvard Law School.

Martin L. Budd, has been a director of ours since May 2007, and is the Chair of our Compensation Committee and a member of the Audit Committee. He retired as a partner of the law firm of Day, Berry and Howard LLP effective January 1, 2007. Mr. Budd chaired that firm’s Business Law Department and its Business Section and had particular expertise in federal securities laws, merger and acquisition transactions and strategic joint ventures. Mr. Budd is Chairman of the Connecticut Appleseed Center for Law and Justice and has served on the Legal Advisory Board of the National Association of Securities Dealers. He is the Chairman Emeritus of the Board of Trustees of the Hartford Seminary and is a member of the National Executive Committee of the Anti-Defamation League. Mr. Budd earned his legal degree from The Harvard Law School.

Thomas V. Cunningham, is currently the Chief Executive Officer of PTL Corporation, an internet services firm and, with his wife, owns the Baltimore Technology Park, LLC, a carrier-neutral data center serving the Baltimore, MD and Washington, D.C. area. He served as Chief Executive Officer of Alabanza Corporation from 1995 until 2007 when the company was sold to Navisite. He was the Chief Executive Officer of Bulkregister.com, Inc. from 1999 until 2006 when it was sold to Demand Media. He is a founding board member of the Institute for the Psychological Sciences, a graduate school in Crystal City, Virginia, and is a member of the Lumen Institute in Washington, D.C. In 2002, Mr. Cunningham was named Regional Entrepreneur of the Year by Ernst & Young.

Michael T. Prior, is our President and Chief Executive Officer.

Charles J. Roesslein, has been a director of ours since April 2002 and is the Chair of our Audit Committee and a member of our Compensation Committee. He currently is the Chief Executive Officer of Austin Tele-Services Partners, LP and has been a director of National Instruments Corporation since July 2000. He is a retired officer of SBC Communications. Mr. Roesslein previously served as Chairman of the Board of Directors, President and Chief Executive Officer of Prodigy Communications Corporation from June of 2000 until December of 2000. He served as President and Chief Executive Officer of SBC-CATV from October 1999 until May 2000, and as President and Chief Executive Officer of SBC Technology Resources from August 1997 to October 1999.

Brian A. Schuchman, is the Founder of Commnet Wireless, LLC, which we acquired in 2005. He joined our Board in May 2007. Mr. Schuchman has spent more than 15 years as an operator and entrepreneur in the wireless telecommunications industry. He founded Commnet Wireless, LLC in 2000 and served as its Chairman and Chief Executive Officer from its inception until July 2006. In 2000, he also co-founded a wireless telecommunications equipment distributor, Commnet Supply, which was sold in April 2004. In the early and mid 1990’s, Mr. Schuchman partnered with rural cellular license holders to build-out and manage numerous wireless markets which were later sold. In 1995, Mr. Schuchman founded Cellular Infrastructure Supply (CIS), one of the first companies to resell cellular switching and base station equipment. CIS was sold to World Access, Inc. in 1997. He continued to manage CIS until early 2000. In 2003, Mr. Schuchman was named Entrepreneur of the Year for the Greater Chicago Region by Ernst & Young.

Henry U. Wheatley, joined our Board in 1998 and is a member of our Audit and Compensation Committees. He has been a director of our subsidiary GTT since 1999. Mr. Wheatley has been the President of Wheatley Realty Corporation since 1973, where he manages the development of shopping centers. Mr. Wheatley is also Chairman of the Board of Coral World (Virgin Islands), Inc., and has been Vice President and Trustee of Islands Resources Foundation since 1972. He was a director of the Virgin Islands Telephone Corporation from 1994 to December 30, 1997.