Telarus' Annual Partner Summit was a noteworthy event for many reasons and Team Telarus hosted an epic networking and educational opportunity for partners and suppliers alike. But the final night was one that Charles Lomond, National Channel Director for AireSpring, will not soon forget. Because it was during the final awards dinner that he learned that the "Top National Channel Manager" award would officially bear his name going forward.

The name change seemed like an easy decision to those who have attended the Partner Summit over the years since Charles Lomond has received top honors for eight years in a row.

His dedication throughout the years and even during a global pandemic only further proves that the award's name change is well deserved.

The Top National Channel Manager award has been given out every year since Telarus' Partner Summit first started. At each yearly summit, Telarus recognizes the hard work and success that national channel managers make throughout their careers.

As the leading producer on the AireSpring Channel Sales Team, Charles has been a key factor in AireSpring's success in the 20 years that they have served the channel.

"Charlie set the bar before there was an annual Telarus award working tirelessly for the success of our partners, and now having won the award every year of its existence, it's only fitting we name the award after the person who epitomizes what it means," said Adam Edwards, Telarus CEO.

"Telarus has a deep and successful relationship with AireSpring, and much of that has been driven by Charlie. His efforts to provide our partners and our internal teams exceptional support, advocacy, and friendship have made him a standout in the industry," added Richard Murray, COO of Telarus.

"Our long-standing relationship with Telarus is special and directly tied to our success. The newly minted Charlie Lomond award has all of us energized and humbled, but more importantly, proud to work with such great people. We look forward to strengthening the ties with the entire Telarus organization as we drive agent adoption, growth, and revenues," said John Young, SVP of Sales for AireSpring.

AireSpring is extremely grateful and proud of Charles Lomond for his long-standing contributions to channel partners that earned him this incredible honor, and so appreciative of our friends at Telarus for immortalizing that legendary service with this legacy.

AireSpring is pleased to announce that Matthew Curtis has joined its award-winning channel sales team as Regional Channel Manager for Austin, San Antonio, and Western Texas.

Matthew began his career in Telecom nearly 20 years ago at MCI (now Verizon). After the MCI merger with Verizon, Matthew moved on to join Reallinx, a nationwide provider of managed services with headquarters in Austin TX, where he served as VP of Sales for 11 years.

From there Matthew joined Ntegrated Solutions, a premier provider of voice and data solutions, as their VP of Sales. Later he assumed the role of Director of Enterprise Development at professional services firm Crossvergence. Just prior to joining AireSpring, Matthew worked as Regional Sales Manager for Channel and Enterprise at Ooma where he focused on developing their indirect channel business. Matthew is well known by both the channel partner and supplier communities in the Austin/San Antonio/West Texas region. His career has spanned roles as both a supplier to the channel and channel sales.

"We are very happy to welcome a sales professional with strength in both Telecom/Cloud technology as well as managed services," stated John Young SVP Channel Sales, AireSpring. "The Austin/San Antonio business communities are growing, and the region is very important to AireSpring. The relationships that Matthew has developed over the years are invaluable."

Join AireSpring for an overview of IT Security.

Get AireSpring Security Certified and earn a

$50 Amazon Gift Card in the process.

• Hear about the 1 Trillion dollar threat landscape.
• Learn about the 7 Types of Threat Actors and the damage they can cause.
• Understand legacy security terms & functionalities, cybersecurity history, and the origin of firewalls.
• Delve into SIP and wireless security.
• Illustrate how to develop a security mindset and adapt that to new technologies.
• Learn about Gartner's Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) -- the new security paradigm sweeping all major vendors.

Most importantly we will show you how to put a secure infrastructure into action by leveraging AireSpring's managed security solutions that give you visibility, encryption, cloud scale and private transport to deal with a borderless, ever changing network environment with secure communications.

Anything that is not secure, is not truly usable.

Space is limited!

Deadline to Register varies by date of Boot Camp.

Reserve your spot and your Amazon gift card now!

Partners who have been previously certified as an AireSpring Security

Sales Professional may attend if space permits but are not eligible for

an additional $50 Amazon gift card.

All attendees must register in advance!

Questions? Contact Lisa Chow at lisa.chow@airespring.com

September Promo: Stand Out from the

Crowd with AireSpring

It's a competitive marketplace and you need an edge, a way to stand out from the crowd and that's exactly what AireSpring provides. With our broad product line and philosophy of delighting our customers and partners, you can have peace of mind that your customers are in good hands. Service and support are what sets one supplier apart from the pack and that's what gives you an edge too.

Channel partners can always depend on Airespring to:

• Be 100% channel focused.
• Offer white glove customer service and concierge services to partners.

• Provide experienced and professional solutions engineers to determine the best technology fit for your customers.
• Treat each order like a project assigning a team of managed services engineers (MSEs) and project coordinators (PC) to assist you and your clients.
• Provide 24/7/365 network monitoring and white glove support by a core team of caring, committed technicians who average a 20 second response time.
• Publish an escalation list that goes up to our CEO.

AireSpring provides everything you need to deliver the best products, managed services, and industry-leading customer service to your clients. And we also offer our channel partners some of the highest evergreen commissions, bonuses, and we're the only supplier in the industry to offer SPIFFs on renewals!

• 6X MRC on Voice/Cloud Services
• 1X MRC on SD-WAN & Global SD-WAN Services
• 1.5X MRC on Connectivity Services & MPLS
• $1600 Cash Bonus on Toll Free Services
• $800 Cash Bonus on LD Services
• 5% EXTRA Bonus Residual Commission on AireSpring Network & SIP LD underlying it all (note: wholesale LD accounts do not qualify).

Please contact your AireSpring Channel Manager for details.

September is designated as National Preparedness Month to encourage Americans to be ready for disasters or emergencies in their homes, businesses, and communities. While every business is routinely concerned with minimizing expenses, most don't consider the true cost of network downtime.

The financial impact of technology malfunctions leading to network interruptions is the total cost of lost productivity, lost revenue, recovery costs, and intangible costs associated with downtime. If your customers are trying to lower their business expenses, investing in managed services, network technology, monitoring, and support is well worth it and far cheaper than the cost of network downtime!

According to Gartner, the average cost of network downtime for businesses is $5,600 per minute, which extrapolates to well over $300K per hour. If your customers lack the resources to supply in-house server and network monitoring, security, preventative maintenance, and support, they can outsource their IT to take advantage of many downtime prevention measures inherent in the AireSpring network and rely on our in-house security and SD-WAN experts to supplement their resources.

Join AireSpring's National Director of Channel Programs, Scott Hailey for an overview of how AireSpring's network, Managed SD-WAN and Managed Security services can ensure connectivity, readiness, and uptime in the event of a disaster.

Complete our brief survey at the end for a chance to win a $100 Amazon gift card!

I began my professional telecom career with AT&T in 1984. I held several leadership positions within AT&T and Lucent Technologies. During my 7 years there I relocated several times for assignments in North Carolina, San Francisco, and Atlanta. After leaving Lucent I joined Trillion, an Alabama- based Telecommunications company, as their President and General Manager. Later I accepted a position at Applora Technologies and then DJJ Technologies NLT, where I work today. The founder of DJJ, James Wang, and I have been friends for over 36 years. We worked together at AT&T. DJJ Technologies NTL, provides design, delivery and support technology solutions including IP telephone, unified communications, VoIP, visual communications, contact center, collaboration, virtualization, and data infrastructure. DJJ also offers Network Services for local, long distance, internet, and private networks. DJJ holds top partner's status and certifications with many leading companies, which allows us to offer a complete and total solution for customers. At DJJ Technologies we strive to provide an outstanding customer experience. Our ability to bring value where others do not is our hallmark. We actually care about our customers. And we deliver on our promises. The proof is in our customer retention metrics.

What do you like about working with AireSpring?

Several things come to mind as AireSpring and DJJ share similar philosophies when it comes to serving our customers.

• First, my channel manager Jesse Michael (Regional Channel Manager, Southeast) who is fun to work with, knowledgeable, and does a great job of following up.

• Second, Melvin Frederick (Solutions Engineer at AireSpring) Jesse's counterpart from the engineering team. Both Melvin and Jesse's technical support is fantastic.
• Third, AireSpring's support model is outstanding from the moment the sale closes, to project management, to implementation, to installation, and finally post-sales support.
• Fourth, all AireSpring staff are committed to the customer's satisfaction and support us in a friendly and capable manner.
• And finally, AireSpring is flexible to meet my customer's needs. We had a good sale to a university that required many contractual language changes and AireSpring's legal department effectively worked to complete the agreement to the customer's satisfaction.

What would you say is the secret to being a successful trusted advisor/sales agent in today's marketplace?

For me it has been the same thing from the beginning ‒ taking care of your customers. This is not just marketing speak. You truly need to carefully listen to them to understand what they need to make their business successful. It's a partnership that needs to be nurtured.

Knowing when to engage the right resources on complex sales and supporting the customer as much as you can is also key. Aligning them with resources and suppliers that will benefit them over the long run and having their best interests in mind are also important. Staying in touch with them after the sale on a periodic basis is also a requirement to develop that lasting relationship and ensure it continues. DJJ has clients we been supporting for many years and I believe that this philosophy is what keeps them coming to us year after year for their telecommunications and IT needs.

What is the "next big thing" you think trusted advisors/agents should be aware of or get involved in etc. in 2021 and 2022?

The hybrid work model that went into effect last year has helped customers discover that they can do a lot "virtually" now. This change is probably going to be with us for some time and new technologies, or the new way of applying existing technologies to support that model, must be planned.

The hybrid work model has also driven home the need for more reliable connectivity and security. Technology is changing rapidly and you need to keep in front of it. You must be prepared to have discussions with your clients to help them through these changes. It goes back to ensuring that you'll go out of your way to apply good customer support and service. Let your customers know you are there to look out for them. Engage them in discussions on new ideas and technologies. If you don't someone else might.

What are some of your hobbies and interests outside of telecom?

I am married and the proud father of two. My wife and I now live in Auburn, AL where I attended college. We love the college town atmosphere but also enjoy traveling whenever possible. Some of my other interests and passions are college football and basketball, and cooking.

Tell us about your professional background and how long you've been in the industry.

I began my career in the telecom industry twenty-two years ago at Conversent Communications, a CLEC based in Boston, MA. I originally started out in direct sales but quickly realized that working with other vendors made attaining quota much easier and adopted a more consultative style when I approached the sale. This was before "channel sales" was an accepted business model and as lucrative as it is today. I was lucky enough to have a wonderful relationship with our CEO and when I approached him to start a division within our company to concentrate on partnerships, he quickly gave me the green light to proceed to develop that business. Mergers and acquisitions opened up an opportunity on the other side of the house and I join a VAR based out of Portsmouth, NH called Axis Business Solutions. I have spent the last 11 years of my career with them and had a team of 13 selling the product lines of suppliers who partner under the Avant, Intelysis and TCG umbrella. We held relationships with all 3 of them and I was responsible for identifying the correct vendors for our clients. Unfortunately, our owner had some health issues and at the beginning of Covid decided to sell the company. I am forever grateful for my time spent with both companies. Both management teams were amazing and supportive of my growth and career.

Tell us about your role at AireSpring, how are you specifically helping partners in your region.

My title at AireSpring is Regional Channel Manager for New England. Due to my previous role at Axis Business Solutions, I am very familiar with the various vendors that compete in my region, as well as their back-office procedures, as I have most likely sold them along the way. Having experience with so many vendors gives me an advantage when speaking with channel partners as I can have transparent conversations regarding my own struggles or positive experiences with those same suppliers. My goal is to become the "go-to" person for multiple location deals where my partners need multiple services and carriers and give them the pricing they need to close the deal.

What do you enjoy most about working at AireSpring?

There are multiple reasons that I love working at AireSpring. My managers, John Young [SVP Channel Sales] and Joe Brondon [Regional Channel Director], are so supportive and responsive when I call with questions and need help with anything. I enjoy the sales team and the open and honest communication we have to discuss what we are seeing in the field and how to overcome issues. Ilya Shvartsman [Director of Pricing and Offer Management] and Ray Loomis [Paralegal and Product Management Contracts] have also been extremely supportive as we face building out the New England market. Also, the work-life balance this company affords me is wonderful. It is a great fit all around and I am looking forward to getting my region built out so it becomes a well-oiled machine.

What are some of your hobbies or interests outside of the office?

My hobbies outside the office pretty much include my children and family. My husband of 16 years, John, and I lead a very hectic life and never seem to stop. My son, Blake, is 14 and plays year-round soccer and basketball with the Boston Celtics circuit. My daughter, Sayde, is 12 and does competitive cheer at the national level so we travel quite often for competitions throughout the year.

When I am not on the sidelines, I do enjoy gardening and being outside as much as possible. We have a small place in Maine at Old Orchard Beach that we frequent as well as a camp at the base of Acadia National Park in Steuben, ME. We try to spend as much time as possible there during the summer. To say the least, my husband John and I try to spend every free moment we have with the children. We know these days will be gone before we know it.

AireSpring is an award-winning provider of Managed Connectivity and Cloud Communications solutions providing fully managed and connected end-to-end, next-generation solutions for multi-location enterprise customers, including:

• AirePBX UCaaS
• MPLS Mesh
• SD-WAN
• Global Managed SD-WAN
• SIP Trunking
• Managed Firewall
• Dedicated Internet Access
• Analog/PRI/POTS
• Wholesale Long Distance

AireSpring's services are delivered over its revolutionary nationwide MPLS Mesh Network, providing customers a fully integrated, end-to-end solution from a single vendor.

sales@airespring.com | 888.389.2899 | www.airespring.com