Board of Directors
Gerald Knoblach
Chairman and CEO, Space Data
Alan Auckenthaler
Alan Auckenthaler is a professional director, after a career as a legal executive in the telecommunications industry, much of it at Inmarsat, the leading provider of mobile satellite communications worldwide, where he was General Counsel. Alan also serves on the board of the U.S. Partnership for Education for Sustainable Development. He is a member of the National Association of Corporate Directors, with a Certificate of Director Education from NACD.s Corporate Directors Institute, and the American Bar Association.s Corporate Governance Committee.
Bill Casto
Bill Casto served as CEO and President of St. Cloud Wireless Holdings which owned Cellular 2000 of St Cloud and Northern PCS. Cellular 2000 was a b-band 850 MHz licensee that St Cloud sold several years ago to Verizon Wireless. Bill led the development of Northern PCS to over 200,000 subscribers before it was sold in 2007 for over $300 million to Sprint. Bill became involved in the cellular industry in its early years. He gained experience as General Manager of Mid-Missouri Cellular and Market Manager of US Cellular in St. Cloud. Previously he spent a decade in the banking industry where he advanced to Assistant Vice President of a regional Milwaukee based financial institution.
Eric Frische
Vice President of Technology and CTO, Space Data
David Jones
General Counsel, Hubbard Broadcasting
David Jones earned a bachelor's degree and a law degree from the University of Minnesota. Since 1994, Mr. Jones has served as general counsel for Hubbard Broadcasting, Inc.
From 1994 to 1999 he also served as senior vice president of United States Satellite Broadcasting (USSB) until its merger with DirectTV in May 1999.
At Hubbard, Mr. Jones is responsible for overseeing corporate legal affairs, including regulatory compliance with the Federal Communications Commission and Securities Exchange Commission. Prior to his employment with Hubbard, Mr. Jones was a partner in the law firm of Popham, Haik, Schnobrich and Kaufmann, Ltd., where he headed the Communications Practice Group and chaired the Administrative Law Department.
Earlier in his career, Mr. Jones served as general counsel for Rogers U.S. Cable Systems, Inc., one of the ten largest cable operators in the United States.
Eric Schimmel
Former VP of Telecommunications Industry Association
Eric Schimmel earned degrees in electrical engineering and business administration from Northwestern University.
In 1999, he retired from the Telecommunications Industry Association (TIA) where he had served as vice president since its formation in 1988. At TIA, Mr. Schimmel was responsible for the administration of policy and technical activities of the wireless communications division. Mr. Schimmel was appointed by the U.S. State Department to head the U.S. delegation to Working Party 8A of the International Telecommunications Union, which oversees international regulation of terrestrial mobile services including paging and cellular services.
Mr. Schimmel is the immediate past president of the Vehicular Technology Society of the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE), and is a member of the IEEE Committee on Communications and Information Policy.
Prior to his service at TIA, Mr. Schimmel was vice president of the Information and Telecommunications Technology Group for the Electronic Industries Association.
Earlier in his career, Mr. Schimmel held a number of engineering and management positions at Motorola over a period of 20 years, including FCC liaison manager.
Jesús M. Sotomayor
Chairman, Softel; Chairman, Méryta
Jesús Sotomayor earned a Ph.D. in electronic and communications engineering and currently holds a professor's chair in telecommunications and information technology at Instituto Tecnologico de Estudios Superiores de Monterrey (ITESM) and is a visiting professor in corporate governance at Instituto Panamericano de Alta Direccion de Empresa (IPADE).
Dr. Sotomayor is chairman of both Softel, a telecommunications company specializing in M2M applications, and Méryta, a consulting firm focused on information technology, regulation and telecommunications. He is a former corporate director of the Mexican telecom carrier Telmex and former chairman of Red Uno, now a Telmex subsidiary.
David Wu
Prior President and Chief Operating Officer
David Wu served as Space Data’s president and chief operating officer from 2001 to 2006 and has been a member of the Board of Directors from 2001 to the present. He is currently the president of Hobnox, Inc., an Internet media and technology company. Prior to joining Space Data, Mr. Wu was president and a founding member of Mirror Image Internet, Inc., a network and content distribution company. There, he was instrumental in developing and executing a business strategy that attracted over $700 million in venture investments. Mr. Wu attained liquidity for Mirror Image’s investors with a peak valuation of $4.5 billion. Prior to Mirror Image, Mr. Wu was director and subsequently vice president of marketing for VideoGuide, Inc., and was a product marketing manager for Intel. Mr. Wu earned a B.S.E.E. and an M.S.E.E./C.S. from M.I.T. and an MBA from Harvard.