Thomas Tighe - CEO and President (Founder)

Since the company’s founding, Tom Tighe has successfully lead the management team that places Wave7 Optics at the forefront of the emerging optical access market. Prior to founding Wave7 Optics in 2000, Tighe spent two years with World Access, Inc. in senior executive management positions. Most recently, Tighe was President of the World Access Wireless Division. Prior to joining World Access, Tighe held several senior executive management positions at Antec, a manufacturer of broadband equipment with annual revenues in excess of $1B. Tighe joined Antec in July of 1995 as the VP and GM of the Broadband Systems Group. In January of 1996, Tighe became President of Optical Networks International (ONI - an Antec company). In March of 1997, Tighe became Executive Vice President of Antec’s Active Electronics Division. Prior to joining Antec, Tighe held various executive positions over ten years at AT&T Network Systems and AT&T Bell Laboratories. Tighe graduated in 1985 with a BSME from Wentworth Institute of Technology in Boston, MA and an MBA from the University of Massachusetts.

Emmanuel A. Vella - Chief Marketing Officer (Founder)

Emmanuel Vella has over twenty years of product management and marketing experience in optoelectronics with specific focus on the broadband access industry. Vella has worked closely with Wave7 Optics’ engineering team to define the industry leading Last Mile Link™ and Trident7™ optical access architectures and to drive the new product development that has kept Wave7 Optics at the forefront of the optical access market. Prior to founding Wave7 Optics, Vella held various executive level positions at Antec, most recently as VP and GM of the Broadband and Optical Transmission Business Unit. In this capacity, Vella led the team that introduced Antec’s DWDM based 1550 nm transport system. Under Vella’s direction, this division of Antec ,more than doubled it’s revenue between 1997 and 1999. Prior to joining Antec, Vella was employed by Harmonic Lightwaves, Inc., a then Silicon Valley venture capital start-up focused on the development and commercialization of Nd:YAG 1310nm transmitters. Vella has published articles in Multichannel News, CT and CED Magazine. Vella has a Bachelor of Economics (BEc) from Latrobe University in Melbourne, Australia and a Post Graduate Diploma in Economics and Accounting (Dip. Ec/Acc) from Latrobe University.

James Farmer - Chief Technical Officer (Founder)

James Farmer has enjoyed over forty years of pioneering video transport in telecommunications networks. In his role as CTO, Farmer has set the technological leadership for the company by playing a key part in architectural definition, RF overlay implementation, and video design for the Last Mile Link architecture. Prior to founding Wave7 Optics, Farmer was CTO for Antec. Prior to joining Antec, Farmer was a co-founder of ESP, which specialized in engineering consultant services to the telecommunications industry. Prior to ESP, Farmer worked at Scientific Atlanta for 25 years. A true icon in the industry, Farmer was the recipient of the 1996 National Cable Television Association Vanguard Award in Technology, he was inducted into the SCTE Hall of Fame in 1997, and he was inducted into Cable Pioneers in 1998. He holds approximately ninety patents in the fields of set top converters, scrambling systems, and video server systems, and he has a large number of publications with NCTA, SCTE, and IEEE. Farmer co-authored two editions of the book, Modern Cable Television: Video, Voice and Data Communications, first published in 1999, which won the Cable Center 2000 Cable Book Award. He is currently President of the IEEE Consumer Electronics Society, and on the program committee for both the NCTA Convention and SCTE Expo. Farmer graduated in 1967 with a BSEE, and in 1968 with a MSEE, both from the University of South Florida.

Jack Bryant - VP of Worldwide Sales

Mr. Bryant joins Wave7 Optics with more than 23 years of telecommunications experience in sales, product management, marketing, engineering and technical support. Jack was most recently President and CEO of Concurrent Computer Corporation (NASDAQ: CCUR), a leader in providing digital Video-On-Demand (VOD) systems to the broadband industry and real-time computer systems for military, aerospace and government applications. Within the digital broadband market, Concurrent earned an Emmy Award for their VOD technology and built a leading VOD market share position through business with most of the major North American cable operators. Prior to joining Concurrent, Bryant was also at Arris, General Instrument, and Scientific Atlanta. A native of Ohio, Jack received a Bachelor of Science degree in Business Administration from the University of Akron and a MBA from Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia.

Mark Pigott - VP of Finance (Founder)

Mark Pigott has over 25 years of experience in accounting and management. Prior to joining Wave7 Optics, Pigott was the Controller of Antec Network Technologies, the $300M manufacturing division of Antec. Pigott was also responsible for Antec’s SEC reporting, including Antec’s initial public offering S-1 filing. Prior to joining Antec, Pigott was a Manager of Financial Reporting for California Energy Co., Inc., and spent two years as a Staff Accountant at Coopers and Lybrand in San Jose. Pigott is a Certified Public Accountant and holds a BS in Commerce with a concentration in Accountancy from Santa Clara University, 1985.

Paul Whittlesey - VP of Market Development (Founder)

Paul Whittlesey has over 30 years of telecommunications experience, largely in advanced HFC networks. As one of Wave7 Optics’ founders, Whittlesey brought his extensive experience with network operations to bear during the definition of the Last Mile Link architecture to ensure that the architecture not only met demands for bandwidth delivery, QoS, and seamless video delivery, but was also practical to deploy and provided network operators a "plug-and-play" implementation. Prior to joining Antec in 1994, Whittlesey had seventeen years experience in plant construction, operations, and engineering at ATC (Time Warner) and Greater Media Cable. While at Greater Media, Whittlesey was a pioneer in the deployment of fiber optic transport systems for CATV applications. At Antec, Whittlesey held various positions ranging from Technical Sales for Optoelectronics to Senior Director of the Broadband and Optics Business Unit. Paul was instrumental in the definition, development, and successful roll out of several key products in Antec’s RF and optical product portfolio.

Bill Saunders – VP of Engineering

Bill Saunders has over 25 years of telecommunications and optical networking experience. Saunders has been an integral leader in the Wave7 Optics organization, previously as Director of Embedded Software for Wave7 Optics’ Last Mile Link and Trident7 optical access systems, and now as VP of Engineering overseeing all aspects of the research and development organization. Prior to joining Wave7 Optics in 2001, Saunders held technical and engineering leadership positions with Alidian Networks developing Metropolitan Access Network equipment, Nortel Networks developing SONET transmission and ADSL equipment, and Mitel Corp developing PBX equipment. Saunders holds a B. Sc degree from Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario.

Dr. John J. Kenny - Chief Scientist (Founder)

Dr. Kenny defined and pioneered the innovative optical design of the market leading Last Mile Link architecture. Kenny has over forty years experience in the telecommunications engineering field. Prior to founding Wave7 Optics, he was a Principle Engineer at Antec, where he was responsible for the specification and design of a variety of new products, including both DWDM 1550 and 1310nm optics. Prior to joining Antec, Dr. Kenny worked at AT&T Bell Laboratories for 29 years, where he specialized in designing high-speed optical transmission systems as well as analog and digital microwave radio systems. In his last three years at Bell Labs, Kenny was the optical expert on the system architecture team that created the Optical Path System Requirements Document for HFC-2000™. Dr. Kenny co-authored "Terrestrial Digital Microwave Communications" and has published numerous papers in that field as well as on HFC-related topics. He is a member of the NCTA Engineering Committee, SCTE, and IEEE. Kenny received his BSEE degree from the University of Rhode Island, and MSEE and Ph.D. degrees from the California Institute of Technology.