"I had hops to Texas causing pings in excess of 150 and 200. Decided to start up the Client, within 3 seconds my pings were 45-50ms ...the first truly helpful thing I've seen in a long while." -Ft. Myers, FL.| Read More
THE GAMERAIL TEAM GameRail's team was composed with the brightest in the industry to provide you with the highest quality, lowest latency connection possible.
GameRail Leadership
Mark Senda CEO
Bob Bicksler
Financial Consultant
Darrell Gentry CTO
Tom Hesterman VP Operations and Engineering
John Alden VP Business Development
Blake Ashby VP Business Operations & Strategy
Board of Directors
Mark Senda
Blake Ashby
Brian Mathews
Peter Esparrago
Robert Guller
Scott Widham
Jim Allen
Mark Senda CEO Mark W. Senda has spent his entire professional career building successful technology companies. Most recently he served as President and CEO, of St. Louis based Xspedius Communications LLC, a competitive communications company operating in 20 states, with revenues in excess of $220m. Prior to Xspedius, Mark was Division President for AT&T Canada, where he ran AT&T's fastest growing business unit, local services. AT&T Canada was the successor to MetroNet Communications where Mark was Chief Operating Officer for Canada's first national competitive communications company. Mark was an early implementer and operator of competitive local access and exchange networks throughout the United States. With MFS Communications he served as Senior Vice President of Network Services and later, with Brooks Fiber Properties as Senior Vice President of Operations & Engineering. He also spent nine years with MCI Communications Corp. in various management roles dating back to the divestiture of the Bell Companies. He currently is a member of the board of directors of Atreus Systems, Inc. a leading IP based software company with headquarters in Ottawa, Canada and the Technology Entrepreneur Center, a St. Louis, Missouri based business incubator providing support to IT and communications start-ups. Mark earned a BS degree in Business from The University of the State of New York and an MS in Telecommunications Policy from The George Washington University.
Darrell Gentry CTO A veteran entrepreneur, Darrell has over eleven years experience with technology and gaming companies. A co-founder of BroadSpan with Blake, he served as the company's first Chief Technology Officer. Darrell was the principal architect of the voice-enabled DSL platform deployed by BroadSpan in cities across five Midwest states. This technology model was a Computerworld Smithsonian Award finalist and is now on file with the Smithsonian Institute as part of its permanent record. Darrell also helped co-found a wireless broadband company serving rural Missouri.
With online gaming experience going back to 16 player Bolo tournaments and persuading IHHD (the Internet Head-to-Head Daemon) to work over his college Unix account, Darrell has been participating in online gaming for over a decade. Starting with the release of Doom he hosted over 40 LAN parties from his home and later used this background to co-found "The Next Level," one of the first retail networked computer gaming companies in the U.S. In 1996 he began hosting Kali St.Louis, at the time the most popular multiplayer online gaming server in the world. A veteran of competitive online team play, Darrell captained the TeamFortress team Clan aXe for several years and later served in various leadership positions for the Blood Eagle Elders, a Tribes franchise team.
Blake Ashby VP Business Operations & Strategy Blake has over fifteen years experience in technology and communications business startups. He was a co-founder and first president of BroadSpan Communications (dba Primary Network Communications), one of the first data-centric competitive phone providers in the Midwest. The company grew to offer service in four states before being acquired by Mpower Communications in 2000. He was an early shareholder and consultant with Envisioneering Medical Technologies, a startup company which has developed a new ultrasound technology for the diagnosis and treatment of cancer. As a consultant, he prepared the original business plan for Diamond.Net, which eventually changed its name to SAVVIS and is now one of the largest backbone providers in the world. He was a founding member of an electronic standards development body for the U.S. Meat and Poultry Industry, mpXML.org, and served as the organization's Executive Vice President. Other ventures have included companies focused on software development, communications technologies and foodservice and food production.
John Alden VP Business Development John has been involved in Internet sales and business development almost as long as there has been a commercial Internet. In the early nineties he sold the very first data T1 installed in the Midwest by MCI. In 1996 he joined Primary Network, one of the first Internet Service Providers in the Midwest. As the Senior Vice President of Sales and Marketing for Primary, John lead the development of sales teams in new and existing markets, media partnerships, various M&A activities, marketing campaign initiatives and product development. In May of 2000 Primary sold to Mpower Communications. As a Regional Vice President at Mpower, John was responsible for revenue from 8 markets, special projects for integrating the two organizations and a national role for data sales development. John has a BA in Political Science from Drury University in Springfield MO, and has taken numerous Master's level Telecommunications Management classes at Washington University's School of Engineering and Applied Sciences.
Tom Hesterman VP Operations and Engineering Prior to joining GameRail, Tom was Vice President of Customer Operations at Mpower Communications, a $200M revenue facilities-based CLEC where he managed all provisioning and field service activities. Before its acquisition by Mpower in 2000, Tom was President of Primary Network, where he was instrumental in growing Primary from a local ISP to a dominant regional telecommunications provider. In 1999, Primary received honors as the fastest growing technology company in St. Louis and was 22nd on Deloitte & Touche's Nationwide Fast 500. Prior to launching Primary Network, Tom was Director of Online Operations for CDM Fantasy Sports, the pioneer of nationwide fantasy sports contests and operator of contests for partners that included The Sporting News, USA Today, and MSNBC. In addition to his 13 years of experience in telecommunications, Tom has 11 years of engineering experience in the aerospace industry. Tom earned a BS summa cum laude in Aeronautical Engineering from The Ohio State University and an MS in Engineering Mechanics from the University of Missouri-Rolla.
Brian Matthews Brian, CEO of River City Internet Group, has over fifteen years experience in technology and networking startups. He was a co-founder of CDM Fantasy Sports, the oldest operator of rotisserie-style football and baseball competitions in the U.S. CDM was recently sold to Fun Technologies, a company that is majority owned by Liberty Media. He helped co-found Primary Network in 1995 and served as its CEO until the company was sold to Mpower Communications in 2000. In 1997, he was recognized by the St. Louis Business Journal as one of the publication's "40 Under 40" business persons. In 1999, Brian and Primary Network received the award as #1 Fastest Growing Technology Company in St. Louis and was named #22 on Deloitte & Touche's Nationwide Fast 500. In 2000, he was recognized as "Entrepreneur of the Year" by the St. Louis Business Journal and "100 Business People Leading Us Into the New Millennium" by the St. Louis Business Journal. Brian has a Bachelor's degree in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Missouri-Rolla.
Peter Esparrago Peter Esparrago is President of River City Internet Group. He has over 20 years of global information technology experience in various industries, including the communications vertical. Peter is also President & CEO of IntraISP, a billing and business management software-as-a-service company for communications service providers. Peter spent 16 years at Accenture where he was a Partner. His responsibilities at Accenture included selling/managing numerous global CRM/ERP/e-commerce/outsourcing engagements, starting up on-shore and off-shore solution centers, and serving as a Software-as-a-Service thought leader. Peter also was the COO for Ariel Research, a global leader in EH&S content, software and outsourcing. As COO, he helped grow and sell the company. He is a member of St. Louis Arch Angels, an angel investing group. Peter has an MBA in Finance from Rockhurst College and a BS in Chemical Engineering from University of Missouri-Columbia.
Robert Guller Robert Guller is the Managing Member and Principal of Bandwidth Exchange Buildings, L.L.C., which operates more than 500,000 square feet of telecom and data center space. Their customer list includes the nation's premier long haul, local and data providers. Guller received a law degree from the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor and holds an M.B.A. and a B.A. in economics from the University of Texas at Austin.
Scott Widham Scott Widham is the president of carrier markets group at Broadwing Communications. Widham is responsible for cultivating and growing Broadwing's relationships with all carrier and wholesale service providers including IXC, NSP, LECs, CLEC, ISP, PTT, Cable, Wireless Providers and Resellers. Widham has over twenty-five years of international and domestic experience in the cable and telecommunications industries. Prior to joining Broadwing, Widham was the owner and operator of Capital Cable, a multi-system operator that was subsequently sold to Charter Communications. Widham also served as an executive vice president of Corecomm and was a director at MTV networks. Widham earned a BBA from The University of Texas at Austin.
Jim Allen Jim Allen, currently managing partner of Meritage Funds, is a veteran communications industry executive with extensive experience in the creation and management of start-up enterprises. He served as Vice Chairman/CEO of Brooks Fiber Properties, which merged with MCI WorldCom in a $3.4 billion transaction, and was a co-founder/CFO of Cencom Cable Associates, which became the 15th largest cable TV company and was sold for in excess of $1 billion. Jim was also a founding investor in Verio, serving as a company director until its $5.5 billion acquisition by NTT. He was Executive Chairman of Xspedius from 2000 to 2004. He currently serves as a director of Meritage portfolio companies Completel and Masergy Communications. He also serves on the Board of Trustees for David Lipscomb University.
Bob Bicksler
Financial Consultant Bob has over 30 years of operational and financial background in telecommunications and technology companies. His track record is one of continued success in growing companies and mergers and acquisitions. Bob comes to GameRail as former President and CFO of HSW International, Inc., a subsidiary of HowStuffWorks that focuses on international online publishing, training, and education markets. At HSW, Bob implemented new business plans in Brazil and China and played a lead role in the successful launch of www.hsw.com.br. Bob began his career and track record of strong performance at PriceWaterhouseCoopers LLP in the audit and tax department where he remained for 19 years. Since PriceWaterhouseCoopers, Bob has led and developed many companies as CEO, Vice President, and/or Chief Financial and Administrative Officer including AT&T Canada, Global Metro Networks, Performance Awareness Corp., Seer Technologies, Inc., and Netifice Communications. Bob’s experience providing strategic merger and acquisition consulting services also comes from his role as former Principal of Catalina Consulting. Bob is a Certified Public Accountant, has an MS of Accounting from the University of North Texas, a BS in Business Administration from Pennsylvania State University, and Certificate of Attendance, ESAN from Lima, Peru.