Executive Profile- Dennis Miller, Chairman

Mr. Miller is a seasoned wireless industry leader who guided the development of Midwest Wireless, LLC from its formation from 5 Rural Service Area partnerships with no customers or operations in the early 1990s through its sale to Alltel in October 2006 for $1.075 billion. Over the tenure of Mr. Miller’s leadership, Midwest Wireless grew from a standing start to a company with revenues of more than $300 Million, and a subscriber base of 475,000.

While President of Midwest Wireless, Mr. Miller served on the Board of Directors of the Cellular Telephone and Internet Association (CTIA), serving as its Treasurer in 2006, and on the Board of Directors of the Rural Cellular Association from 1995 through 2007, serving as its President in 2003. Prior to leading Midwest Wireless, Mr. Miller was the Vice President of Minnesota Operations (Senior State Executive) for Pacific Telecom Cellular from 1990 to 1996 and a Zone Sales Manager for Motorola from 1982 to 1988. Mr. Miller is a graduate of Minnesota State University-Mankato.

Mr. Miller is active in many civic and non-profit organizations including service as vice-chair of the Immanuel St. Joseph’s – Mayo Health System Board of Directors.

Executive Profile- Brian Fingerson, President

Previously, Mr. Fingerson was with Midwest Wireless and the company that preceded it since 1989. In that year, Mr. Fingerson joined Pacific Telecom Cellular Inc. (PTCI) of Appleton, Wisconsin as a Radio Frequency Engineer and was appointed Construction Manager in 1992. A group of independent telephone companies that owned wireless licenses throughout Minnesota who were part of PTCI combined in 1996 under the name Midwest Wireless. Mr. Fingerson became one of the pioneer staff and was named Director of Engineering and Technology.

In 1998, Mr. Fingerson was appointed to the position of Vice President of Engineering and Technology, and in 2004, he was named Senior Vice President and Chief Technology Officer.

Mr. Fingerson was responsible for setting and implementing a strategic vision for Midwest Wireless technologies, which was used to deliver world class communications products and services to customers in the Midwest. The following outlines some of those accomplishments:

  • Integral contributor of the executive management team that built the business into a leading regional communications company generating $290M in revenue with 445,000 subscribers.
  • Effectively managed a $36M expense budget and a $34M capital budget.
  • Established and successfully built a high quality technical team from inception to 65 employees.
  • Launched a fixed high speed wireless broadband network serving over 12,000 subscribers using pre-WIMAX technology.
  • Designed and launched a very unique converged voice offering utilizing cellular and VoIP technology
  • Directed and managed through 3 technology upgrades (AMPS to TDMA, TDMA to CDMA 1x and CDMA 1x to CDMA EVDO) while managing explosive customer growth and quality expectations.

Mr. Fingerson grew up in Lanesboro, Minnesota, and graduated from Lanesboro High School. He went on to receive an Associate in Applied Science from Western Wisconsin Technical College in 1986, a Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering from the Milwaukee School of Engineering in 1989, and a Bachelor of Science in Business – Minor (Pre-MBA) from the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse in 1992.

He is involved in the community and industry and has previously served on the Minnesota State University, Mankato Industrial Advisory Board, Rural Cellular Network Interoperability Committee and the Nortel Networks Users Group Board.

Executive Profile- Jay Hanke, CTO

Previously, Mr. Hanke was with Alltel/Midwest Wireless since 2000. In that year, Mr. Hanke joined Midwest Wireless of Mankato, Minnesota as a Wireless Data Engineer and was appointed Wireless Data Manager in 2004.

Mr. Hanke was responsible for leading his technical team in designing, deploying and managing the full range of data offerings for Midwest Wireless. Jay led the deployment of the full range of CDMA data services including Circuit Switch Data (CSD) and Short Message Service (SMS) for TDMA and CDMA, CDMA 1xRTT packet data network, CDMA EVDO Rel 0/A packet data network, AAA, PDSN-HA/FA and IP services. He was the technical lead on the wholesale BREW platform and CDMA CRX 1xRTT/EVDO data roaming implementations. While at Alltel, Jay lead the technical team charged with the content filtering and bandwidth optimization projects for the company.

From inception, Jay was the technical lead in the deployment of the clearWave fixed-wireless network. The network serving over 12,000 customers is one of the largest fixed wireless deployments in the United States. His group also deployed a VoIP service over the clearWave network and enabled QoS throughout the RF network utilizing a SIP Proxy, Session Border Controller and Media Gateway.

Mr. Hanke grew up in Blue Earth, Minnesota, and graduated from Blue Earth High School. He went on to receive a Computer Information Science from Minnesota State University-Mankato in 2000.

Mr. Hanke holds a CCIE in Routing and Switching and is certified from Adtran (VoIP) and Juniper Networks (Routing).