Birch Names Tony Tomae as President and CEO

Company plans to focus on organic growth with this coordinated executive appointment.

ATLANTA, May 3, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Birch Communications, Inc., ("Birch") a leading provider of communications, network and cloud services to small, mid-sized, enterprise and wholesale businesses across North America, announced today that its Board of Directors named Tony Tomae as the company's next President and CEO, effective May 1.  Tomae succeeds Vincent M. Oddo, who will be assuming a new position as President and CEO of Birch's sister company, Birch Equity Partners.

Tomae is a 25-year-plus communications and data industry veteran who comes to Birch from FairPoint Communications where he served as Chief Revenue Officer and was responsible for sales, marketing, and product management functions.  He has served in a number of executive positions at Deltacom –now EarthLink– and WilTel Communications.  He has also held positions with AT&T and Broadwing Communications.  Tomae holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Marketing from Fairleigh Dickinson University in Madison, N.J.

"As we celebrate our 20^th anniversary, 2016 has uniquely served as a year of transition," says Dr. R. Kirby Godsey, Chairman of the Board for Birch. "Tony will be instrumental in shepherding Birch as we continue transitioning to a more organic sales model.  As we look toward our next 20 years, we will continue to seek opportunities for growth through acquisition; however, organic growth will remain our top priority.  Tony's experience in sales, marketing and product in the voice, data, and access space will prove invaluable as we move forward with our strategy and I am confident that we have found the right person as we continue this growth path."

"I have watched Birch's recent network and product expansions in Metro-Fiber, cloud services and unified communications, and I am honored to lead Birch as we continue on the path to become the technology ally for businesses of all sizes," says Tony Tomae, newly appointed President and CEO, Birch.  "In the short term, we will continue to expand our Metro-Fiber footprint, working with our business customers with operations across the U.S.-Canada border to consolidate services to a single provider, and we will deepen our feature set within our Cloud portfolio to supply the enterprise-class features our customers need."

Tomae succeeds Oddo, who assumed leadership and partial ownership of the company in 2003 and led the company through 28 acquisitions, including the purchase of Birch Telecom in 2008, Cbeyond, Inc. in 2014, and most recently the asset purchase of Primus Telecommunications Inc.  Over the past 13 years, Oddo grew the company from a UNEP-focused telecommunications company in its original nine-state footprint to an industry-leading technology company with a network owned and operated across North America.  Birch is one of only a few companies who can provide service in all 50 U.S. states, 5 Canadian provinces, Washington D.C., and Puerto Rico.

"I am sincerely appreciative for Vinnie's leadership that has brought us to our 20th year in business," says Godsey.  "Through his strategic direction, Birch has built a product portfolio that serves both communications-centric and technology-dependent businesses of any size and positions the company perfectly for the next decade of growth."

Tomae will be based at the Atlanta Operations Center, and plans to relocate to the Atlanta area. 

About Birch Communications

Birch Communications, Inc. is a leading communications, network, cloud and IT solutions provider celebrating 20 years in business (1996-2016). Recognized for exceptional customer experience, Birch delivers cost-effective solutions that assist small, mid-sized, enterprise and wholesale businesses to increase their productivity. Its industry-leading product portfolio is available across North America and includes Metro-Fiber, Metro-Ethernet, unified communications (UC), hosted phone systems, hosted data centers, and hosted file storage services. For more information, visit birch.com.

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SOURCE Birch Communications, Inc.

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