THOMAS A. SCHROER

4714 Mariner Drive - Frisco, Texas 75034 - 972.987.7171 - tschroer@tx.rr.com

 

 

Operations, Engineering and Marketing Professional with extensive experience in the area of Information Technology/Telecommunications with both voice and IP mobile data networks.  Held managerial and technical roles requiring strong leadership, entrepreneurial and teambuilding capabilities.  One touchstone of my approach to the business of telecommunications is my ability to work across functional lines on challenges that require interaction and experience with Engineering, Sales and Marketing and Finance to satisfy and exceed the needs of the customer.  Broad international and domestic business experience.

 

Dialogic Inc. – Dallas, Texas2012–Present

Dialogic helps service providers implement next generation networks and deliver innovative, value added services to their customers.

Director, Service Provider Marketing

·            Director of service provider marketing responsible for Dialogic’s diameter signaling controller, session border controller, and soft switch/media gateway product lines

·            Launched new diameter signaling controller and session border controller platforms and developed and executed strategies for existing soft switch and media gateway offerings

·            Successfully worked with industry analysts, and leveraged social media and industry events to evangelize Dialogic’s strategic direction with NGN technology, IPX, mobile data, LTE, Wi-Fi offload, and Network Functions Virtualization (NFV)

·            Developed and delivered thought leadership webinars on topics including NFV and virtualization, contact center transformation, and network evolution

·            Worked globally with regional marketing and sales teams to articulate solution positioning and messaging, implement campaigns, improve web presence and website ranking, deliver webinars and blogs, and speak at industry conferences to improve brand awareness and help build funnel

 

NetScout Inc. – Dallas, Texas2009–2012

NetScout provides service assurance solutions to help mobile and fixed service providers and enterprise organizations around the globe optimize and ensure performance of their IP and next generation networks.

Service Provider Product Marketing

·            Launched NetScout's public entry into the Service Provider market developing the messaging, value proposition and segment needs assessment to properly position NetScout's nGenius Service Assurance Solution for both analysts and customers

·            Provided technical and business level messaging, positioning and collateral development

·            Led cross functional teams on several launches of new features and products enhancing the process to speed completion with limited resources while improving the overall quality of the material delivered

·            Worked closely with Product Management and Sales on customer opportunities helping them to more effectively position NetScout's service provider solution

·            Developed content used for customer facing and analyst engagements - reached out to Sales Engineers and Consultants to expand and improve the existing body of work and more effectively scale to meet demand for content

·            Developed competitive analysis and competitive strategies for use by the Sales team in positioning the NetScout solution

·            Provided training to Sales and customers on NetScout's service assurance solution

·            Developed the material used for speaking engagements, customer meetings, webinars and analyst meetings

·            Introduced processes to more effectively leverage trade show investments with pre and post show customer and market outreach activities

·            Skills include LTE/EPC, GPRS, UMTS and CDMA2000 mobile technologies, IP video, IMS, VoIP, IP protocols, service assurance, analytics, network monitoring, product launch, market segmentation and analysis

 

Tektronix, Inc. – Dallas, Texas2005–2009

Part of the Danaher family of companies, Tektronix provides test, measurement and network management solutions to service providers and equipment manufacturers across the globe.

IP Product Marketing

·            Developed market programs, messaging, collateral and customer presentations in the US, EMEA and Asia Pac for Tektronix’s service assurance OSS (Operational Support Systems) suite of applications.  Developed programs which helped improve profitability (200 basis points), provided market trend and market segment analysis, and strategy development for Tektronix’s service assurance solutions.

·            Experience in service management of IP/IMS networks delivering voice, data and video services.  Grew the Voice over IP (VoIP) Network Monitoring orders by 340% into one of the top selling OSS performance monitoring applications for Tier 1 global service providers.

·            Extensive international and domestic customer contact working with global communications providers helping them manage their network transformation initiatives, quality of service and network management challenges. Used “Voice of the Customer” feedback to provide input into the product line to better meet the needs of the customer. 

·            Increased sales team efficiency and knowledge of new features through the introduction of the system planning guide that detailed products and their applicability to customer needs.

·            Established and implemented a refresh of marketing materials tailored to key milestones in the sales cycle and standardization of roles and responsibilities and timing of deliverables.  The result was a re-designed and retooled product marketing process with reduced costs, better efficiencies and communication between the product management, sales and marketing teams.

 

GoLinx, Inc. – Dallas, Texas2002–2005

Consulting and services company targeting small to medium, rural and metropolitan ISPs with consulting and competitive voice service offerings. 

Co-Founder and Owner

·            Co-founded, built and managed a consulting services company enabling ISP’s to provide competitive voice service offerings over their broadband infrastructure.

·            Involved in startup project centering on brokering physical interconnection and service management for customers requiring long haul network connectivity between North America and Latin America.

·            Designed, priced, marketed and implemented a SIP based, VoIP service offering including integration of IP “hard” and “soft” phones, Linux based SIP proxies and session border controllers, protocol (SIP-H.323) gateways, media gateways, media servers, testing software and connectivity to origination and termination carriers.  The suite of retail VoIP products included residential and SOHO applications, enhanced services and basic PBX offerings. 

·            Provided technical training on SIP based VoIP service implementation including ordering, activation and troubleshooting and operational support including fault management, configuration management, testing, field trials and network integration.  Resulted in maximizing customer self-management, remote problem handling and proactive trouble mitigation.

 

Sigma Networks – San Jose, California2000-2002

Innovative metropolitan access network provider with coverage in tier one metropolitan areas offering an array of high bandwidth, optical business-to-business connectivity services. 

Director, Network Planning

·            Key responsibilities included Network Planning, Business Development, Capacity Planning, Project Budgeting, Real Estate acquisition, leased fiber acquisition, collocation and network interconnection.

·            Accomplishments included developing provisioning guidelines for the resource management system and a capacity planning processes integrating information from sales funnel and inventory system with project implementation lead times.  Helped to proactively reduce stranded capital investment and lower service activation intervals to less than 15 days.

 

GST Telecom – Vancouver, Washington1998-2000

A facilities based communications provider delivering local and long distance voice services, operator services and long haul, high-capacity data transport to major metropolitan markets in the West and Southwest US.

Vice President, Operations and Engineering, West Region

Vice President, Network Services Planning

·            Responsible for Network Planning, Engineering and Operations for GST’s switching and transport networks, and Outside Plant Engineering and Construction.  Activities included Capital Budgeting, Cost Reduction, Margin Improvement and Contract Negotiation. 

·            Experienced with the engineering, implementation and operation of class 4/5 switching technologies, transport networks and OSS provisioning/inventory systems helping to reduce order backlog and increasing network performance.

·            Ran Operations, including Provisioning, Service Delivery, Planning and Engineering, for switch and transport networks in nine GST markets from Hawaii to Houston managing approximately 90 employees.  Significantly reduced backlog and doubled revenues to $400K per month ($31M annualized).

·            Led the team that significantly reduced line costs, managed large installation projects, negotiated innovative vendor and service provider agreements and developed multi-million dollar capital budgets.  Resulted in over $3M in one-time credits and over $18M in annual cost reductions with Regional ILECs, carriers and other providers.

 

Brooks Fiber Properties – GLA International– St. Louis, Missouri1996-1998

Brooks Fiber Properties (BFP) was a nationwide local and long distance voice and data services provider which was acquired by Worldcom in 1997.  GLA International was the consulting and professional services arm of Brooks Fiber Properties.

GLA International: Vice President. Network Design

Brooks Fiber Properties: Senior Director, Strategic Planning

·            Consulting responsibilities included technical support, network design and implementation services for clients of GLA which included telecommunications and cable companies, investment banks, municipalities and enhanced services providers located in Mexico, the US and Canada. 

·            Led the team responsible for the backbone network infrastructure planning and Capital Budgeting for switching and transport networks and project management of network interconnection/collocation in over 130 locations nationwide.

·            Accomplishments included development of multi-million dollar capital budgets, successfully managing large-scale installation projects and consolidating two redundant inventory systems into one.  Significantly reduced costs and improved operating efficiencies.

 

Southwestern Bell Telephone 1990-1996

Responsibilities included Planning, Engineering, and Contract Administration and Negotiation for transport and switching networks and data center computing platforms.

 

 

Masters of Business Administration, Finance/Accounting, Washington University

B.S., Electrical Engineering, Minor, Computers, University of Notre Dame

Advanced Technology Innovation Program, Carnegie Mellon University

 

 

·               Past Presidents Board – Notre Dame Club of Dallas ·               President, Notre Dame Club of Dallas-2005	·               President’s Club – GST Telecom ·               Award of Excellence – Brooks Fiber
·               Board of Directors – Notre Dame Club of Dallas-2006 - 2010	·               Recognition Award - Tektronix
·               Member-Beta Gamma Sigma Honor Society	·               2010 Person of the Year Award – Notre Dame Club of Dallas
·               NOVA Award (SBC Achievement Award) - SBC