Fiberutilities Group is a team of industry experts.

The Fiberutilities Group

Fiberutilities Group brings together a team of industry experts with many years of communications technology and other related industry experience. We leverage this expertise for the benefit of our clients, providing turn-key networking solutions unmatched by other service providers. Our approach is to handle all aspects of network planning, creation, and management so that our clients are able to remain focused on their core business competencies.

Executive Team

The executive team at Fiberutilities has enjoyed remarkable success within the telecommunications and network communications communities. Our executive team has delivered and continues to deliver incredible client satisfaction - ensuring that our clients develop into long-term partners who are able to take full advantage of the capabilities of their networks.

Scot J. Eberle

President, Fiberutilities Group LLC

Scot Eberle brings 20 years of business experience, including extensive success in the telecommunications arena, to his role as President of the Fiberutilities Group. A tested leader of successful teams, Mr. Eberle has held a variety of executive level positions within the communications industry with MCI Communications, McLeodUSA, 3M and Lanier.

Mr. Eberle has served on the Board of Directors and as Co-Chairman for leading technology organizations and endeavors. He is routinely retained as an expert in the field of emerging technology, with television presentations and other public appearances dealing with the future of technology.

David Lunemann

Vice President, Client Services

Dave Lunemann is an experienced Sales and Marketing leader and Co-Architect of OpportunityIowa, the nation’s largest organized initiative to establish municipal communications utilities in Iowa.

Mr. Lunemann has held a number of executive and senior management positions in the communications industry including Group Vice President of Sales & Marketing for McLeodUSA, one of the largest CLEC’s in the nation. Charged with leading the national sales efforts in the competitive communications industry, Mr. Lunemann demonstrates a successful track record in establishing highly effective sales and marketing organizations. Experienced in a variety of related fields including “triple-play” service delivery, equipment and infrastructure management and competitive telecommunications, Mr. Lunemann brings a wealth of resources to bear for our clients.

Prior to returning to Iowa in 1994, Mr. Lunemann directed the east coast factory branch sales operations for the Environmental Products division for Amana Refrigeration in Atlanta, Georgia.

Kent J. Van Metre

Vice President, Asset Management Division

Kent Van Metre is a seasoned communications professional with more than 20 years of key management experience in the communications industry spanning the wireless, data, CLEC, interconnect and cable television sectors.

Mr. Van Metre’s marketing experience includes positions as Director of Marketing for the Western United States for Sprint Cellular and as Director of Marketing for advanced telecommunications services for McLeodUSA. Mr. Van Metre’s leadership roles include serving as the Iowa General Manager for Sprint and for Inter-Tel Technologies, GM and Director of Market Operations of Ohio with 360° Communications, and as Vice President and General Manager for McLeodUSA.

Gerald Horst

Vice President, Network Services Division

Gerald Horst has been providing information technology and communications infrastructure expertise for more than 20 years. He has broad experience in deploying and managing telecom operational support systems (OSS), business support systems (BSS), and outside plant GIS engineering systems.

As one of the key operational partners, Mr. Horst manages numerous facets of network design, management and operations at the Fiberutilities Group including outside plant, NOC and network architecture services.

Lee C. Seydel

Vice President, Network Services Division

Lee Seydel brings over 25 years of innovative network and technology management experience to Fiberutilities Group. Mr. Seydel has extensive software development experience with leading companies such as Texas Instruments, Xerox, DSC and TelecomUSA. Mr. Seydel has served as Director of Intelligent Distributed Network Architecture for MCI, as Vice President of Network Services for McLeodUSA and Vice President of Emerging Technology for Americable Inc.

Advisory Board

The members of the Fiberutilities Group Advisory Board bring together exceptional track records of success within their respective fields. We are fortunate to have expert leadership in the areas of management, finance, operations, legal counsel, technology, and regulation.

Clark McLeod

Company Co-Founder

Clark McLeod is co-founder of Fiberutilities Group, LLC, which provides “high level connectivity solutions” to local governments and to enterprise clients. Fiberutilities currently operates over 8000 miles of interstate fiber networks on behalf of its clients in government, financial, healthcare, and data center services.

Mr. McLeod has been at the forefront of highly-competitive communications companies for three decades. In 1991, he founded McLeodUSA. He served as Chairman of the Board from June 1991 to April 2002. He also served as Chief Executive Officer from the company’s formation until January 2001. At the time he left the company, McLeodUSA was the largest independent competitive local exchange carrier in the nation and employed over 10,000 people. The company’s interstate fiber network spanned 31,000 route miles.

Mr. McLeod founded Directory Publishing in 1986. After the company’s expansion to over 40 states, it was purchased by Yellow Book in 2002, forming the largest yellow page directory publisher in the world.

In 1980, Mr. McLeod founded Teleconnect, an Iowa-based long distance telecommunications company. He served as Chairman and CEO of Teleconnect from January 1980 to December 1988. In 1985, the Teleconnect team, led by McLeod, contracted with the Williams Companies to build the first Midwest fiber infrastructure from Chicago to Denver, which was then extended to the east and west coast forming the country’s first transcontinental fiber cable, preceding the later builds of the major carriers, ATT, MCI and Sprint. In December 1988, following a merger with SouthernNet, Inc., the company was renamed Telecom*USA and became America’s fourth largest long distance telecommunications company, with nearly 6,000 employees. MCI purchased Telecom*USA in August 1990 for $1.25 billion.

H. Brian Thompson

Company Co-Founder

H. Brian Thompson is Executive Chairman of Global Telecom & Technology (GTT), a global telecommunications network integrator, while continuing to head his own private equity investment and advisory firm, Universal Telecommunications, Inc., in Vienna, Virginia.

As a veteran senior executive of the telecommunication industry, Mr. Thompson has been instrumental in impacting the rise of competitive telecommunications both in the U.S. and abroad. Within the US, beyond his current GTT development role, Mr. Thompson served as Executive Vice President of MCI through the 1980s, the truly formative years of competitive telecommunications development, with MCI leading the charge. In the ‘90s, he headed LCI International as Chairman and CEO until it merged with Qwest Communications in June 1998, whereupon he became Vice Chairman of Qwest until his resignation in December 1998. During the development of the Telecom Act of 1996, Thompson served as Chairman of CompTel, the organization representing the competitive telecommunications industry, and was very much involved in how that Act took shape.

Internationally, Thompson was Chairman of Comsat International from 2002-2007, when it was acquired by British Telecom. He also served as non-Executive Chairman of Telecom Eireann (Irish incumbent telephone company) in 1999, and Chairman and CEO of GTS from March 1999 through September 2000. He helped found and later became Chairman of the Global Information Infrastructure Commission, a multinational organization launched in Brussels in 1995 to chart the role of the private sector in the developing global information and telecommunications infrastructure. He also has headed several advisory committees assisting the Irish Government as they have evolved their policies on telecommunications and ICT.

Mr. Thompson currently serves as a member of the board of directors of Axcelis Technologies, Inc., ICO Global Communications, Penske Automotive Group, and Sonus Networks, Inc.

Mr. Thompson received his MBA from Harvard's Graduate School of Business and holds an undergraduate degree in chemical engineering from the University of Massachusetts.

Tom Hertz

Tom Hertz has a broad and varied background ranging from nuclear engineer to being a practicing attorney. Mr. Hertz was CEO of one of the fastest growing telecom startups in the upper Midwest prior to its acquisition in 1999. Mr. Hertz has twenty-plus years as a practicing attorney with emphasis on business and corporate law in the technology industry, and has senior management experience in civil service, private enterprise, and startup private / public companies with 10,000+ employees. He is experienced and familiar with intellectual property issues, business strategy and modeling, compliance issues and legal/financial/data analysis; he is skilled at complex contract preparation, review and negotiation.

Previous to his role as group vice president for Network and Operations for McLeodUSA, he worked as a consultant for mergers and acquisitions, and for operational, management, regulatory, compliance and other legal issues including intellectual property and contracts law. Mr. Hertz also has extensive experience with venture capital firms, specializing in operational issues and investment opportunities.

Joining Dakota Telecommunications Cooperative as general manager in 1995, Mr. Hertz transformed the company from a small rural telephone cooperative with 35 employees and five million in annual revenue, to a public company doing business in four states with 400 employees and forty-million in annual revenues. Mr. Hertz holds engineering and law degrees from South Dakota institutions, attended the University of Minnesota and the University of Washington and did post-graduate work at Iowa State.

Blake O. Fisher, Jr.

Since May of 2004 Mr. Fisher has been President of Blake Fisher Associates providing financial consulting services in the utility and telecommunications fields. His consulting work has included providing services to the Department of Agriculture’s Broadband Program. Mr. Fisher has served as a director of Headwaters Incorporated, an energy company, since November of 2004 and as a director of UCN, Inc, a telecommunications company since July of 2004.

From 1996 to 2002, he served in senior management positions for McLeodUSA, a telecommunications company, providing service in 25 states, initially as chief financial officer and latter as president of the company’s Western Region. He was chief financial officer of IES Industries, an electric and gas holding company in Iowa, from 1991 to 1996 and president of IES’s non-regulated businesses from 1991 to 1996. He worked for Consumers Power Company, an electric and gas utility in Michigan from 1967 to 1990 in several management positions including vice president of Finance and treasurer.

He graduated from the University of Michigan with BSE and MSE degrees.

Personnel

The project managers, engineers, and support staff at Fiberutilities make up one of the most talented professional teams in the industry. Without the work of our dedicated team of personnel we would not be able to promise and deliver the degree of client satisfaction for which Fiberutilities Group has become known.

Strategic Partnerships

Since our inception, Fiberutilities has been continuously networking and growing our list of strategic business partners. We are fortunate to be able to call upon counsel from experts in the legal, engineering, financing, data, manufacturing fields and more. While we have developed a multitude of close and valuable relationships, we remain committed to our position as a carrier-neutral, technology-neutral, client-centered organization. We are paid solely by our clients, and therefore are able to provide un-biased, straightforward guidance regarding the best course of action for our clients.