Comtech Telecommunications competitors

Gary B. Smith is a British-American executive, currently serving as the Chief Executive Officer of Ciena, an American telecommunications networking multinational.

Frank Plastina was appointed President and CEO of Tekelec in February 2006. He brings more than 19 years of senior executive and management experience in the telecommunications industry with companies including Proxim Corporation, Warburg Pincus LLC and Nortel Networks Corporation. Prior to joining Tekelec, Mr. Plastina was executive in residence at Warburg Pincus, where he was responsible for evaluating potential investments and providing executive support to its portfolio companies. Previously, Mr. Plastina was executive chairman of Proxim, a provider of Wi-Fi and broadband wireless access products. During Mr. Plastina’s 15-year career at Nortel, he held a series of executive-level positions in the company’s Wireless, Internet Service Providers, Signaling Solutions, Mergers & Acquisitions and Finance Groups. Most recently, he was president of Nortel’s multi-billion dollar Metro and Enterprise Networks business unit, in which he led the successful development and marketing of the company’s VoIP products to service providers, enterprises and government entities.

Rich Schroder is based in Plano, Texas. He has worked as VP Access Business Unit at Dan Ericsson, Manager Product development at Unify, and Senior Director Switching Product Development at DSC Communications.

I am currently the CEO at iDirect, the market leading provider of global connectivity solutions in the satellite communications industry. Our solutions support the global telecommunication industry, service providers, and international government and defense organizations that leverage satellite connectivity. As an entrepreneur, I have also worked at early stage startups that were later acquired by Fortune 100 companies and also held senior leadership roles at those companies. While there are things that only experience can teach, I have proven my ability to be highly adaptable and a quick learner. I have been described as an ethical “street fighter”. I have been in a lot of tough situations throughout my life, and I have always risen to the occasion. I am highly competitive. At a young age I became a competitive swimmer and continued through college where I earned All-American honors. Swimming taught me the importance of goal setting and that hard work and dedication are essential to success. Swimming also gave me a way to constructively channel my intense competitiveness and the value of motivation. As an eternal optimist I thrive on motivating a team and rallying them behind a common goal.