MTUG's Board

ATX Advisory Services

Tonia is a currently Director of Consulting Services with ATX Advisory Services in Biddeford, Maine. Previously she was Director, PMO/BPM at the State of Maine Office of Information Technology for many years. Prior to that, she has served as Managing Partner at One Bridge Consulting, a technology consulting firm, and was ERP Implementation Project Manager for Johnny’s Selected Seeds where she was responsible for facilitating business process improvement efforts, organizational change management, and software implementation. Tonia also brings many years experience in project management in a variety of information technology and call center operations in the retail and banking sectors. Tonia is currently enrolled at Champlain College pursuing a degree in Cybersecurity.

Tonia joined the MTUG Board in 2015, and currently serves as the Board President.

Systems Engineering

Joe Bourgault is the Business Development Manager at Systems Engineering. Prior to that, he was a Strategic Account Manager for OTT Communications and a Senior Account Manager for FairPoint Communications. Joe has worked in the IT industry for over a decade.
Joe joined the MTUG Board in 2014, and currently serves as Board Vice President.

Consolidated Communications

Austin Brower is a 16 year member of the Maine ISP and Telecom community. He started his career at Points South (a dial-up ISP) providing technical support to end users. He then engineered, deployed, and supported telephone and DSL broadband networks in southern and central Maine for Points South and then Cornerstone Communications. At Cornerstone Communications and Lincolnville Telephone he helped win broadband expansion funding from the ConnectME Authority, build rural broadband networks (including fiber-to-the-home), and he remains involved in broadband expansion policy. At the end of 2014, Austin joined FairPoint Communications -- now Consolidated Communications -- as a Sales Engineer. He is now a Senior Sales Engineer, where he supports Maine's Enterprise accounts -- including banks, health care, and other multi-location businesses -- concentrating in Managed Services, Security, and Carrier Ethernet.

Austin joined the MTUG Board in 2015 and currently serves as Board Treasurer.

Maine Medical Center

John Foley is Manager of Network Engineering at Maine Medical Center. He has 20 years of IT experience, with 17 years in networking in healthcare. He has managed numerous infrastructure and organizational upgrades and transitions as healthcare organizations in Maine have expanded and merged.

John has been part of the MTUG community for many years, joined the board in 2011, and currently serves as Board Secretary.

Ron O. Brown Consulting

Ron is a professional engineer with more than 45 years of professional experience and over 25 years as an independent IT and telecom consultant. He formerly was with GTE where he conceived, designed, and implemented the world’s first CLEC, and was National Director of Telecommunications Consulting at Coopers & Lybrand. His current practice emphasizes expert work in the areas of IT and telecommunications intellectual property, contracts, and antitrust matters. He also works actively with the University of Maine to develop new computer and telecommunications programs.

Ron has served for more than a decade as an MTUG Board member and is also currently Vice Chair of the IEEE Communications and Computer Societies in Maine and Vice Chair of the IEEE Maine Section.

US Cellular

Mike Begin is a Wireless Solutions Architect with US Cellular, where he serves as the technical and solutions design expert, and leads deployments of new solutions. Prior to that, Mike was a Sales Engineer with FairPoint Communications, and OTT Communications. A twenty-year veteran of Maine's IT community, Mike graduated from the University of Maine with an Associates in CIS and a Bachelors in Business Administration, and is pursuing an MBA at Husson University. Mike is a long-standing participant in the MTUG community.

FirstLight Fiber

James Harder is a Senior Account Manager with FirstLight Fiber. He joined the MTUG Board in August 2018.

Stonewall Kitchen

Mark is the Network Security Engineer at Stonewall Kitchen. He is responsible for managing the network infrastructure and day to day operation of the Stonewall Kitchen networks.

Mark has participated in MTUG events for the last ten years, 6 from a vendor perspective while with Lincolnville Telephone, 2 as a consultant with The NorthCross Group and the last 2 as an end user with Stonewall Kitchen.

Mark joined the MTUG board in 2015, and is very much looking forward to contributing to the continued success of the MTUG organization.

Community Health Options

William Kilbreth is the Chief Information Officer at Maine Community Health Options. He joined the MTUG Board in June 2019.

L.L. Bean

Kristen currently serves as Director of Enterprise Information Management at L.L. Bean, where she has began as a programmer/analyst nearly 20 years ago, and rising as a project manager, team lead, information services manager and senior manager before her current directorship. Kristen joined the MTUG board in 2017 and serves on the Conference Committee.

Gartner Research

Jamie Popkin is a Vice President and Gartner Fellow in Gartner's CIO research team, focusing his research on digital business transformation and data and analytics topics. He was formerly Chairman of Gartner's Orlando Symposium/ITxpo and Tokyo Symposium/ITxpo and formerly Group Vice President of the Business Intelligence and Information Management research group and was responsible for Gartner business development in China, India and Korea. Jamie co-authored "IT and the East: How China and India are Altering the Future of Technology and Innovation" with Partha Iyengar, published April 2007 by Harvard Business School Press.

Prior to joining Gartner, Jamie was with the Deloitte & Touche LLP Information Technology practice. Jamie has also served as a board member of the Association for Image and Information Management (AIIM) International Board of Directors. Jamie has broad experience in public speaking, and is a past MTUG I.T. Summit Keynote.

Jamie has a bachelor's degree in economics from Connecticut College, a master's degree in public policy from the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University and a Certificate of Management from the Darden School of Business at the University of Virginia.

Tanium

Eugene is Director of Technical Account Management at Tanium. Prior to that, he was Vice President of Security at Winxnet (now known as Logically).

A long-time participant and supporter, Eugene joined the MTUG board in 2016.

Vantage Point Recruiting

Uli Stewart is a Technology Recruiter with Vantage Point Consulting where she specializes in building high performance teams in engineering, IT and upper level management workspace. She brings over two decades of experience in telecommunications and IT, having served analyst roles at Central Maine Power, WellPoint/Anthem, and Idexx Laboratories, and account management at Systems Engineering. Uli holds BA from the University of Connecticut, and has been active with MTUG for much of her twenty-year career.

NetWorks Consulting

Curt Sweet runs his own independent telecommunications consulting firm, NetWorks Consulting. Curt has worked for clients in the for-profit and non-profit sectors including the State of Maine, the University of Maine, Northeastern University, LL Bean, Camden National Bank, and the United Way. His expertise encompasses wired and wireless infrastructure, carrier services and contracts, and IP telephony and unified communications.

Curt has had had a thirty year career in the telecommunications industry, working for Key Bank of Maine and the University of Southern Maine prior to founding NetWorks Consulting in 1988.

Curt is also active in state telecom regulatory affairs, participating in Maine Public Utilities Commission proceedings and appearing before the state legislature and telecommunications industry forums.

Curt founded MTUG in 1987, collaborating with a team of telecommunications end users in Maine, and has been involved as an MTUG Board member and/or participant ever since. Curt retired from the MTUG board after 29 years of service in 2016.