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.

Josh Beil

Joshua Beil is the Director of Market Strategy and Research for Parallels, the leading provider of automation and virtualization software to the web hosting community. Previously, Josh was the Director of Social Media & Technology at a Level 3 Communications [Nasdaq: LVLT] where he provided strategic and tactical sales support. Before that, Josh was CEO and cofounder of Skywave Broadband, Inc, the largest commercial WiFi service provider in Hawaii. He was named one of Pacific Business News' Forty Under 40 for 2006, and in 2005, he was named a High Tech Leader by the Pacific Technology Foundation. Before co-founding Skywave, Mr. Beil was VP of Research and Development for the market research boutique, Tier 1 Research, where he covered the Internet infrastructure sector as an analyst, and negotiated and sold subscriptions to Tier 1's research services. Josh has also previously served as the Senior Analyst for Exodus Communications as well as the internationally known market research firm, IDC. He holds a Certificate in E-Business from UCSC Extension, and he graduated with honors from the University of California at Santa Cruz with a major in Psychology.

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.

Brian Fry

Brian is a driving force behind the development of Canada's first truly "green" datacenter, RackForce's GigaCenter in Kelowna, BC. This facility, engineered with input from IBM's Big Green team and powered by a hydro-electricity, delivers large-scale, technologically-advanced infrastructure for disaster recovery, colocation, and cloud/virtualization computing demands, and it sets the standard for green datacenters.

Brian launched his first technology company in Vancouver in 1985, and spent the Internet boom years in California. In 1997, Brian and his family left the traffic and pollution of California behind and returned to the safe, clean and green interior of BC. Brian became a partner in PowerLink Internet Services, which quickly grew into one of the largest ISPs in British Columbia, and was sold to Internet Direct in 1999. A short time later, Brian co-founded IPWorld Networks with Tim Dufour. This established a successful partnership, and in 2001, Brian and Tim co-founded RackForce. Brian and Tim have created a company that has significant business relationships with IBM and Microsoft, and that provides environmentally sustainable Dynamic Datacenter Services to a world-wide customer base. Brian is an outdoor enthusiast, and his passion for skiing and hiking reinforces his commitment to Green IT.

Justin Giardina

Justin Giardina is the Chief Technology Officer of iland Internet Solutions, a global provider of Hosted VMware, managed collocation and high-speed IP network and data services. As CTO, Mr. Giardina implements company and network solutions to increase productivity and eliminate downtime, while recognizing and deploying technological advances. Mr. Giardina oversees all aspects of iLand's technical operations, including budget, design, purchasing and installation; while also managing the company's technical team.

Mr. Giardina has over 15 years of IT experience. Prior to joining iLand, Mr. Giardina led network engineering and system administration teams in the consulting and petrochemical industries. Mr. Giardina attended the University of New Orleans in Louisiana. He is also an active member of various professional organizations, including Houston's Ubuntu Users Group and the Plone project.

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.

Jason Remillard

Jason Remillard has been involved with Enterprise IT for over 15 years now with extensive exposure to corporate security and compliance issues. He has a proven track record leading geographically diverse development teams in North and South America, Europe, China and India. A strong communicator who has delivered CxO-level presentations globally and fostered advanced relationships with Microsoft, Cisco, Novell, and other high-profile vendors - Jason is currently bootstrapping his latest venture - www.54f3.com - which is focused on enterprise-grade website security and vulnerability management services.

Stacy Griggs

Stacy Griggs is the Vice President of Sales for MaximumASP. MaximumASP is the largest Microsoft-only hosting company in the world. Prior to Maximum Stacy held a series of positions at HostMySite / Hosting.com including Chief Sales Officer, Chief Service Officer and General Manager for their flagship Delaware datacenter.

Stacy has led several information technology services companies over the last 15 years. He was a Managing Director for KForce a $1 Billion publically traded professional services firm. At KForce Stacy managed 5 business units that collectively generated $18 Million in revenue and had 140 employees. Prior to KForce Stacy was a Vice President and part-owner of Diamond Technologies, an 80 employee custom software development firm. Previously Stacy held management positions at TMP Worldwide, the University of Pennsylvania, Christiana Care Health System and Humana.

Through his theWHIR blog, Stacy will touch upon sales and service in the Web hosting space, web hosting events and industry trends.

Matt Campagna

As an avid Web 2.0 contributor to online media, Matt Campagna currently directs the webseries "WHIRtv" for The Web Host Industry Review, as well as the award winning film preview and review webseries "Your Geek News" (YourGeekNews.com) and the the popular irreverent vinology webseries "Naked Wine Show" (NakedWineShow.com).

He also owns and operates Campagna Brothers Independent Pictures with his brother, Jeff, where Matt has produced, written and directed feature films like the Irish documentary "Roots of a Man" (RootsofaMan.com), the critically acclaimed Post-Apocalyptic Spaghetti Western “Six Reasons Why” (SixReasonsWhy.com) and its in-development follow-up "Roll the Hard Six" (RollTheHard6.com).

In addition to independent filmmaking, Matt has co-founded the "Mississauga Independent Film Festival" (MIFF.ca) to celebrate other Canadian independent filmmakers, which is going into its third season in 2010.

Follow him on Twitter @MattCampagna

Watch his film production videoBlog at MattCampagna.com

Read his IMDB Profile at http://www.imdb.com/name/nm2098457/

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 Selans

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).

Sören von Varchmin

Sören von Varchmin heads ePages' Sales department and Business Development initiatives. With more than 50,000 customers worldwide, ePages (Twitter: @ePages) is a leading vendor of hosted e-commerce software. Numerous hosting providers such as Strato, BT, Host Europe and Deutsche Telekom offer ePages software on demand - enabling their customers to professionally start an online business at low cost without programming experience or complicated installations. Prior to his start at ePages in November 2009, he held various positions at Parallels, most recently as VP SaaS and Service Providers International. In this role, he was building a rapidly growing ecosystem around Parallels's SaaS platform and products for global delivery of a wide range of services over the web. His areas of responsibility also included the integration of acquired companies in the system and billing automation software space as well as the International Service Providers business unit. Previously, as Director of Sales & Marketing at Yippi-Yeah! E-Business, Sören von Varchmin led the rapid growth of the Confixx brand for web servers, attaining market leadership in Europe in just two years. The company was later acquired by Parallels in 2003.

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 began with the original Miva Corporation (now Miva Merchant) in 1999 as Director of North American Sales. His responsibilities included channel sales and management, strategic partnership development and end user adoption. Rick took over as Vice President of Sales and Business Development in 2002. In 2007 he became President - COO when the company was spun out of MIVA, Inc (formerly FindWhat) into a standalone entity. Today, Rick's duties include overseeing all parts of day to day operations with a specific focus on Sales, Marketing and Business Development. During his tenure at Miva Merchant, Rick has worked with thousands of web hosting companies to assist them in offering an ecommerce platform to their end users.

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 (now Buffini and Company), 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 in the late 1990's

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, events we attend and our participation in the Web hosting industry.