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Leadership

2022-2023 Adaptive Spirit Board of Directors

 

Nomi Bergman, Director

Nomi is a senior executive at Advance and focuses on corporate development and strategic partnerships. She served as president of Bright House Networks until its 2016 merger with Charter and Time Warner Cable. Nomi presently sits on the corporate board of publicly-held Comcast Corporation and Visteon, privately held by Black & Veatch, along with Advance Portfolio investment of Hawkeye360 and Advance-owned 1010data. In addition, she is a board member for her alma mater, University of Rochester, One Revolution and member of the FCC Technological Advisory Council. Her real moments of brightness derive from her role as a dedicated wife to her husband and proud, loving mother of three wonderful daughters.

 

Rich DiGeronimo, Director

Rich was recently appointed to his current position as President, Product & Technology and joined Charter in 2008. Coming from Level 3 Communications where he served in multiple leadership roles over eight years, Rich started his career at Bear Stearns focusing on technology investment banking. In 2015, Rich was named WICT Rocky Mountain Mentor of the Year. He has a B.B.A. from the Ross School of Business at the University of Michigan where he graduated with high distinction.

 

Deborah Flippo, Secretary

Deborah has over 25 years experience in the telecommunications industry. She has held executive sales positions at Friend MTS, Amdocs Media (formerly Vubiquity) and iN DEMAND Networks.  Her non-profit experience beyond Adaptive Spirit includes co-chairing the Cable Positive Denver Chapter and Positively Cable Show where she was a Brad Wojoski and Beacon Award winner. She also served as President of the Virginia Tech Denver Alumni Chapter where the Outstanding Chapter award was achieved 10 years in a row. Deborah is currently completing her sixth year on Virginia Tech's National Alumni Board. She has served as secretary of the board since the organization’s inception and communications chair on the event committee since 2004.

 

Ewam de Freitas, Director 

Ewam is vice president of product and technology for Liberty Latin America with responsibilities across 20 consumer markets delivering communications, high-speed connectivity, and entertainment products. Liberty Latin America is an integrated telecommunications company focused on the Caribbean and Latin America. Prior to joining Liberty Latin America in 2019, Ewam held Product and Technology leadership roles at Level 3, Charter, and Comcast. As a competitive athlete from his early to late years in soccer and cycling, he is passionate about athletic endeavors. His greatest passion is creating experiences with his wife and daughter. He received a B.S. in Biology from James Madison University.

 

Ralph Green, Director

Ralph Green is a Customer Development Account Associate Representative at PepsiCo (Frito Lay). His clients include King Soopers, Walmart, Safeway, Sams Club, Target and the Air Force Academy. Adaptive Spirit attendees may remember Ralph as an 11-year member of the U.S. Paralympic Ski Team. While active as a ski racer he partnered with Cox, Coca-Cola, United Airlines, The Home Depot and Rocket Fuel as a sponsored athlete and brand ambassador. A former board member of Disabled Sports USA, Ralph is a motivational speaker with a strong emphasis on youth violence. He has an M.B.A. with a marketing concentration from Keller Graduate School of Management.

 

Tim Gropp, Director

A 40-year veteran of the telecommunications industry, Tim recently left CommScope. Previously, he led sales teams for ARRIS Group, Inc., including in the US, Latin America, Asia Pacific, and Canada. Tim led global sales at C-COR and then joined ARRIS in 2007 as a result of the C-COR acquisition. Previously, he was with Southwestern Bell, AT&T and Lucent Technologies. In addition to his work with Adaptive Spirit, he serves as a director for Arrowhead at Vail Association. Tim has a B.A. from the University of Texas and is active in SCTE. He was recently inducted into the Cable TV Pioneers. And speaking of pioneers, Tim is considered an Adaptive Spirit pioneer attending the event beginning in 1997 and almost every year since then.

 

Colleen Langner, Director

Colleen is EVP / Chief Operating Officer for Cox Communications. In this role, she has enterprise responsibility for field operations across the company including field services, outside plant maintenance, field operations strategy, and vendor management. Government and Public Affairs and Human Resources teams are also under her leadership. Langner is a 25-year Cox veteran holding senior-level marketing and sales roles. As the former SVP of marketing operations, she was a driving force in helping Cox to adapt to new market conditions, customer expectations, and unrelenting competition. She has been honored by MultiChannel News with a Wonder Woman award, which is given to female executives at the forefront of cable television and communication industry. She is the recipient of multiple CableFax’s Most Powerful Women Awards and the Woman of the Year from Women in Cable Southern California Chapter. A cable industry veteran and honored by a number of industry organizations, Colleen got her degree at Marquette University.  A Midwestern at heart, she now lives in Atlanta with her family.

 

Doug Moore, Director

Doug serves as President, CEO and representative director of Fujitsu Network Communications Inc. He oversees Fujitsu’s North American businesses providing network infrastructure and services. Doug's held a variety of positions in sales, marketing, development, manufacturing and engineering. He received his B.S in mechanical engineering from the University of Arizona and his M.B.A. from Arizona State University. Doug is a passionate supporter STEM education and the growth of the digital economy. He is chairman emeritus of Tech Titans, chairman and board member of Truenet Communications, advisory board member of iCode LLC, board member of Asociar LLC., and board member and treasurer of the Telecommunications Industry Association. As an avid outdoorsman, he relishes all summer and winter sports. Doug especially enjoys his work as an Adaptive Spirit board member.

 

Brad Parobek, Director

Brad is a 35-year veteran in the telecom industry and currently works for Friend MTS as Senior Vice President, Americas Sales. Brad has worked for Disney Channel, Bravo, Encore/STARZ!, Amdocs, Nokia and CSG. He is also a seed investor in BT&O Consulting, a data and analytics consulting company. Brad has been involved with Adaptive Spirit since 1999 and is a race co-chair and board member. Brad is passionate about mentoring young adults interested in business and technical sales roles and an avid golfer, conservationist and outdoorsman. Brad resides in the Denver metro area with his wife, Sandra, and two daughters. Brad has a B.A. from Ohio University.

 

Steve Raymond, Chairperson

Steve Raymond is Vice President of Accessibility for Charter. In his role, Steve leads efforts to drive, launch and refine accessibility and universal design in Charter’s accessibility products, features and services. Previously, Steve was VP Client Solutions for Nielsen Connectivity. Before Nielsen Steve was SVP at VUBIQUITY, Inc. From 2014 – 2017, Steve served as vice president of affiliate relations for AT&T Sports Networks in Denver. Prior to that position, he spent 25 years in affiliate sales at the Walt Disney Company ending his time with them as SVP National Accounts. Steve has won numerous awards for his volunteer work in the adaptive skiing arena such as the CTAM Chairman's Award and ESPN Volunteer of the Year in 2003. He served on the board of directors for the National Sports Center for the Disabled in Winter Park, Colorado. Steve serves on the Paralympic Working Group and Paralympic Strategic Task Force for the US Olympic and Paralympic Foundation and was inducted into the Colorado Snowsports Hall of Fame in 2019.

 

Amos Smith, Treasurer

Formerly VP Operations at T-Mobile Home & Entertainment, Amos has been in the cable industry since 1994. He held previous positions at Time Warner Cable including GVP Tech Ops, Care & Payment Services and SVP/CFO residential at Time Warner Cable. Prior to Time Warner Cable, he spent seven years at AT&T Broadband (formerly TCI) in various financial positions. Prior to those finance positions, Amos was a registered Professional Civil Engineer in Southern California. He has a B.S. in Civil Engineering from the University of Colorado and an M.B.A. with an emphasis in finance from the University of Kansas. 

 

Pete Wisowaty, Director

Pete is a telecom industry veteran with over 30 years of sales management and business development experience. Currently, he is Chief Revenue Officer for RiskLens, a software company providing security risk economic quantification for large enterprise, telecom and the government. Prior to RiskLens, Pete was VP Sales at Akamai as a result of the acquisition of Nominum. At Nominum, he was EVP of Sales and Marketing. His prior leadership include roles at Grand Central Communications (Google/SFDC), WhereNet (Zebra), ZeitNet (Cabletron) and Kalpana (Cisco). Pete also founded Azure Sky Ventures, an advisory/consulting business. He has been actively involved with Adaptive Spirit since 2015. Pete and his wife have two boys in college and split their time between Palo Alto and Vail.

 

Tom Wlodkowski, Director

Tom is the Vice President of Accessibility at Comcast. In this role, he is responsible for developing and executing the company’s strategic plan focused on the usability of Comcast's products and services by people with adaptive needs as well as pursuing opportunities to further enrich the customer experience for that community. Throughout his career, Tom has been a pioneer in the accessibility field. Blind himself, he has been a champion for people with disabilities, working to improve usability of mainstream Internet, mobile, broadcast and cable television technology. He began working in accessibility and tech in the early 1990s at public radio and TV station WGBH in Boston.

 

Ken Tolle, Legal Advisor

President and Senior Advisor, Launch Pad Media Advisors