Leadership Team

Ed started with IBM where he rose to Director of Global Network Design Engineering. He then joined Cisco Systems in roles including Vice President and General Manager for Cisco System Engineering, at RTP. Ed later moved to be Exec VP of Product and Customer Success for Extreme Networks. Among other prestigious positions and appointments, Ed has chaired the General Hugh Shelton Leadership Center and been appointed by the NC Governor to Chair the Micro Electronics Center of North Carolina.

Rich began his career as a hardware circuit design engineer with Uniden designing dual mode cell phones. Rich then joined Motorola where his unique technical expertise soon led to his having designed and deployed cellular system technology changeovers for cellular infrastructure for multiple Telco Operators including PacTel. Rich developed new processes and wrote the white papers on how to deploy the first CDMA system in the USA in partnership with the founders of Qualcomm. Rich was recruited by Mobile Systems International, an early phase software and services company, to open and run their Atlanta division where he led efforts to design networks for Verizon, BellSouth International, Sprint, T-Mobile and AT&T. This included 1G to 2G, 2G to 3G, 3G to 4G, 4G to 5G and a look ahead to 6G. When your cell phone switched seamlessly in the night to a new technology, it was on the design practices developed and led by Rich. During Rich’s tenure at MSI, he helped grow the company from 50 to over 500 employees while expanding to 14 global offices and eventually MSI sold for over $1B. After successfully leading his own consulting business for ten years, he was recruited by his old boss at Motorola to join AT&T’s HQ Product and Strategy Group to elevate their design practices for the most difficult and high profile venues in AT&T’s Portfolio such as AT&T Stadium, other NFL, NBA, NHL, KY Derby, NCAA Final Four, Coachella and other Concert venues etc. Rich developed an entirely new design process that yielded a minimum of 2x capacity improvements on every venue thus elevating AT&T’s brand. Rich left this high-level position at AT&T to join WhiteStar as its CEO bringing his special combination of technical expertise and business acumen.

Billy holds over 300 patents advancing mobile and internet technologies. His list of technical proficiencies is commensurate with what it takes to have achieved the triple crown status of Distinguished Engineer for Cisco Systems, Extreme Networks, and CREE. Billy’s early career was in the cellular industry as a software engineer for Motorola, then as a Senior Manager for Americom Corp before becoming Vice President of Engineering at Uniden. Billy was recruited to Ericsson where he was Director of New Concepts. Transitioning to the internet industry, Billy was a prolific Distiguished Engineer with Cisco Systems serving with Ed Carney there. Later, Billy formed Red Shirt Robotics, a specialty robotics provider targeting the defense industry, before spinning out WhiteStar Communications and inviting his more business-centric brother, Rich, to provide the business leadership.

James transitioned from teaching networking at Kennedy Space Center to sales and marketing roles in three internet startup companies that each reached successful investor exits, including the first Indo-American company to go public on Nasdaq. James joined then startup Cisco Systems for a 14-year executive career where he led exceptional revenue growth in both commercial and government sectors, envisioned and stood up several new business units, served as chairman of the internet subcommittee for a POTUS advisory council (NSTAC), exiting Cisco as VP and Chief Strategist for Global Government Solutions. James then established C-Suite consulting company Loom Enterprises in which he provided CxO engagements across various business sectors. On average he reduced costs by at least 20%, boosted profitability by over 25%, grew market share by over 80%, and increased revenues by over 100%.

Marc Fath has more than 30 years of experience in global engineering product development, operations, quality assurance, and process automation at companies such as IBM and Cisco Systems. Early on in his career Marc was involved in mainframe software development, moving on to computer telephony integration – laying the foundation for this technology by co-authoring the Versit encyclopedia. More recently he led engineering teams responsible for developing unique networking solutions for the government market, while also leading large scale network verification teams for the world’s largest enterprise customers.