Meet The WHIR Bloggers

Liam Eagle

Liam Eagle has worked as a contributor to the Web Host Industry Review since its inception in 2000, and as editor since 2003. He has been editor of the WHIR's print magazine since its launch. His daily involvement in the gathering and reporting of Web hosting news and his regular interaction with Web hosting leaders gives him an uncommonly broad appreciation of the issues and tends facing the business. Through his WHIR blog, Liam spots Web hosting trends and offers opinions on the industry-wide impacts of major developments and the motivation behind big announcements.

Tom Millitzer

Tom Millitzer provides merger & acquisition services to Internet service firms including Web Hosting, Data Centers and similar sectors. In 1994 he founded New Commerce Communications, Inc. (NCC), where he serves as President.

During his career he has been involved in almost 200 mergers & acquisitions, corporate finance, appraisal and consulting projects. Prior to NCC he was co-founder and President of Charter Cable Systems, Inc. a cable television company based in Cincinnati. He also held executive positions at Group W Broadcasting and Cable.

Through his WHIR blog, Tom will not only review web hosting acquisitions, he will provide concepts and suggestions that he believes will make more money for both buyers and sellers of web host firms.

David Snead

David Snead is a lawyer whose practice is focused on internet infrastructure providers. In his eleven years in this practice, he has represented clients including multinationals, middle tier hosting companies, and two guys, a server, a T-1 and a huge MasterCard balance.

A long-time WHIR contributor, David Snead is the Web hosting business's best-known legal expert. Through his WHIR blog, he offers a credible legal perspective on both specific actions in the Web hosting business and general developments in legislation.

William Toll

William Toll has held product management positions in the Web hosting and financial industry since the late 1990s. Now at the leading hosting services provider, NaviSite, William is responsible for developing the company's small business hosted product lines, including one of the industry's biggest platforms - Alabanza.com. In past positions at companies such as Affinity Internet, Inc., Intermedia, and NTT/VERIO, William was the driving force in launching and enhancing successful Microsoft Exchange and ASP.NET Hosting services. William was responsible for Affinity's Gate.com brand and its new clustered Windows Server 2003 shared hosting platform launch. William received a BA in Marketing from New England College in Arundel, England.

Through his theWHIR blog, he blogs about web and application hosting services from the perspective of the customer, a hosting company employee and a vendor. Subjects include marketing, hosting market analysis and service provider management and delivery optimization.

Dave Cummings

David Cummings has been a co-founding Managing Partner of Agile Equity since 1998. Mr. Cummings is responsible for the strategic development and continued expansion of the firm's investment banking business, including sourcing and executing both domestic and International transactions in IT services, software and healthcare industries. Mr. Cummings has over eighteen years of corporate finance experience through a diverse background in mergers and acquisitions, equity and debt financing activities. Mr. Cummings has successfully completed over one-hundred M&A transaction with several billion dollars of enterprise value for both privately held and large multinational public companies. In addition, he has authored numerous corporate finance articles for various professional journals, magazines and periodicals. Previously, Mr. Cummings spent seven years as a Vice President and Officer with Fleet Financial Group where he developed acquisition and divestiture strategies that contributed to the banks growth. Mr. Cummings began his career with State Street Research & Management as an equity analyst specializing in software technology. Mr. Cummings has a Bachelors of Sciences Degree in Business Administration and Management and is a graduate of New York University, Stern School of Business.

Bob Angus

Bob Angus is a Product Marketing Manager in VeriSign's SSL business unit responsible for the VeriSign Partner Program. He has worked with web hosts and domain name registrars to increase profits and retain valuable customers. Bob is passionate about effectively marketing innovative technologies, helping sales reps achieve huge bonuses, and creating an experience that makes customers smile.

A 20-year veteran of promoting and selling internet and software products, Bob has worked at ValueClick, Autodesk, Caere and Sprint. You can also read his work on his VeriSign blog as "The Ecommerce Evangelist" at http://blogs.verisign.com/ecommerce/.

Adam Eisner

As Director of Domain Services, Adam is responsible for driving innovation in Tucows' domain name registration business. He has over 10 years of experience in the areas of Internet marketing and services, and holds a Journalism degree from Toronto's Ryerson University.

Paul Hirsch

Paul Hirsch is a moderator on WebHostingTalk.com, the largest Web hosting community on the Internet, and he is a founder and Core Team member of the International Web Developers Network (IWDN). He is co-owner of Studio1337, a Web design and development company located in Akron/Canton, Ohio, West Hartford, connecticut and Durham, U.K. Paul received his bachelors degree from Kent State University in Electronic Media Production, with minors in Computer Information Systems and Sociology. He earned a masters degree in Media Management from Kent as well.

Through his theWHIR blog, he will offer perspectives on developments in design technology for the people who create what Web hosts host.

Kayla Fleming

As Vice President of Surpass Hosting, Kayla has experience in all areas of web hosting from conducting market research to securing server environments. Kayla has worked with Internet companies for nine years and has been involved in the web hosting industry since 2002. Under Kayla's direction, Surpass has reached record growth each year. She is also responsible for the company's forum, one of the most active communities among web hosts.

Through her theWHIR blog Kayla will focus on the benefits of attaining and maintaining a secure hosting environment as well as offer insight into the current and future state of the web hosting industry.

Jason Brown

Jason Brown is the Product Support Manager for @Mail and focal point for @Mail Appliance systems, based out of Polson, Montana. Jason has a wide range of experience in providing hosting solutions for Email services for his own business. In his spare time, Jason promoting "Security Through Awareness" and researching on-line security tools (see http://thumbprintsecurity.com).

Hartland Ross

Hartland Ross is an online marketing strategist, entrepreneur, and founder and president of eBridge Marketing Solutions - an online marketing agency and consulting firm catering to technology companies.

An expert in the principles of marketing, strategy and business development, Hartland began his entrepreneurial career in the building materials industry as a successful franchise owner and operator. He followed this up with a stint in the pulp and paper industry before landing positions with two different internet marketing startups in the online advertising sector. He then took his online success and moved on to become VP of Sales and Marketing for a national training and development company.

Considered a pioneer in the online world, Hartland has been working in the sales and marketing of web based technology companies since 1999. He is well recognized and regarded in the hosting industry and to date has worked with over 150 web hosting companies providing business growth, marketing strategy and industry direction advice and recommendations.

With 15 years of business development experience, plus over 10 years experience in working specifically with technology companies, Hartland is a sought after speaker and online authority who is often interviewed and quoted in various industry related case studies and articles.

Corporate philanthropy is also top of mind for Hartland who believes it's important to give back to his community. Hartland is a past board member of Young Entrepreneurs Association and is an active mentor for Junior Achievement helping our youth become the business leaders of tomorrow.

A graduate of UBC, Hartland holds a Bachelor of Science degree and a Master degree in Business Administration with a focus on Business Strategy.

Derek Vaughan

Derek Vaughan has been actively marketing on the Internet since 1995. His extensive online marketing experience includes the online direct marketing of books for $300 million per year NYSE traded book publisher Thomas Nelson. Mr. Vaughan also marketed products online at the Walt Disney Company as the online marketing manager of ecommerce for ESPN.com. He was also the marketing manager for the launch of the NASCAR Online Store in October of 1999.

More recently Mr. Vaughan turned his attention to online marketing for the Affinity Internet, Inc. family of companies - which owns a broad portfolio of web hosting brands. Additionally, Mr. Vaughan served as Vice President of Marketing for Aplus.Net and helped them establish a strong position in the web hosting field. Derek is currently the VP of Marketing at HostMySite.com.

Derek Vaughan holds undergraduate degrees from both Indiana University and Purdue University, and has earned a Master of Business Administration degree from the Owen School at Vanderbilt University.

Through his theWHIR blog, Derek will touch upon online marketing in the Web hosting space, web hosting events and industry trends.

Rick Wilson

Rick Wilson is the former Vice President of Sales and Business Development of Miva (now Miva Small Business), serving in that capacity from 2002 to 2005. Rick was a member of the senior management team at Miva Corporation prior to its acquisition by FindWhat.com in 2004 and its transition into Miva Small Business. Rick's more than 12 years of executive-level sales and marketing experience also includes his tenure as Vice President of Sales and Marketing for Providence Systems, a privately held sales training company. At Providence Systems, Rick developed and executed the sales and marketing strategies that helped lead a successful corporate turnaround between 1998 and 2002. Through his WHIR blog, Rick will cover ecommerce trends, products and services from the perspective of the online merchant. He will focus on best practice thinking, tools that help them improve their business and be on the look-out for the information that provides merchants the competitive edge to be successful.

Larissa Primeau

Larissa Primeau attended the University of Western Ontario and completed a degree in communications. She also studied radio broadcasting, and has worked on-air at The Wolf 97FM in Prince George, British Columbia and hosted the afternoon and morning show on 92.5 JACK FM in Toronto, Ontario. She has written freelance for ellecanada.com, yahoo.ca and soundproofmagazine.com. She joined the WHIR in January of 2009.

Justin Lee

Justin Lee covers the Web hosting industry full-time for the Web Host Industry Review in both online and print. He is a graduate of the School of Journalism at Ryerson University in Toronto.

David Hamilton

David Hamilton reports full-time for the Web Host Industry Review. He has written for Canada's National Post and is a graduate of Queen's University and Humber College's journalism school.

WHIR Happenings

The Web Host Industry Review team would like to make sure all our readers are kept up to date on the latest happenings with theWHIR. This blog will be authored by several members of the team and will provide lots of valuable information about theWHIR.com