Craig Sparks named rising star in U.S. wireless industry

DENVER, July 3, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- C Spire Chief Innovation Officer Craig Sparks was named one of the U.S. wireless industry's rising stars this week along with 12 other executives from AT&T, Verizon, T-Mobile, Sprint, Comcast, Dish Network, Ericsson, Intel, Qualcomm, the FCC, WISPA and Starry.

Fierce Wireless, an internationally recognized online publication and email newsletter that focuses on the latest trends, analysis and news in the wireless industry, announced the selections in a special report published Monday on its website by Editor Mike Dano.

The rising stars list was compiled by Fierce through public nominations, select solicitations and internal deliberations.  "These are the executives … who are working to make significant contributions to the industry.  Basically, they're the ones we think you should be keeping your eyes on," Dano wrote in the report.

Joining Sparks on the list are Charlie Ergen of Dish Network, Sanyogita Shamsunder at Verizon, Marachel Knight at AT&T, Niklas Heuveldop at Ericsson, Aicha Evans at Intel, Cristiano Amon at Qualcomm, Claude Aiken at the Wireless Internet Service Providers Association, Chet Kanojia at Starry, John Saw at U.S. Sprint, Greg Butz of Comcast, T-Mobile's Mark McDiarmid and FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr. 

"I'm honored to be selected as part of this prestigious list," said Sparks, who has served as vice president of technology since 2016 for the Mississippi-based diversified telecommunications and technology services company and was named chief innovation officer last month by C Spire President Stephen Bye.  

Sparks is a telecommunications industry veteran with over 20 years of experience, most recently at U.S. Sprint before joining C Spire.  He is responsible for driving service, product and business innovation at C Spire and plays a key role in helping direct some of the most innovative technical initiatives in the wireless industry.

C Spire operates the sixth largest wireless unit in the U.S. with nearly 1 million customers and recently acquired Birmingham, Alabama-based TekLinks, a highly regarded and rapidly growing resell, cloud, managed and professional services provider.

In 2014, C Spire was one of the first in the U.S. to offer consumers Gigabit-speed internet access and related television and phone services in 11 Mississippi markets.  The firm also operates several other subsidiaries that provide a suite of voice, data and cloud services to consumers and businesses in parts of four southeastern states.

Sparks is the second company executive to be named to the Fierce Rising Stars list.  Bye was selected in 2017 and CEO Hu Meena has been named one of the most powerful and influential industry executives by Fierce, most recently in 2014.

About C Spire
C Spire is a diversified telecommunications and technology services company that provides world-class, customer-inspired wireless communications, 1 Gigabit consumer Internet access as well as a full suite of dedicated Internet, wireless, IP Voice, data and cloud services for businesses and enterprises.  This news release and other announcements are available at www.cspire.com/news. For more information about C Spire, visit www.cspire.com or follow us on Facebook at www.facebook.com/cspire or Twitter at www.twitter.com/cspire.

SOURCE C Spire

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