Tom Stachowiak Promoted to Chief Technology Officer at Birch

Company announces new executive leadership team member, continued focus on innovation

Atlanta – July 16, 2015 – Birch Communications, Inc., (“Birch”) a leading technology service provider of IP-based communications, broadband, cloud and IT-services to small, mid-sized, enterprise and wholesale businesses, announced today the promotion of Tom Stachowiak, former VP of Information Technology at Birch, to SVP & Chief Technology Officer.

The company said Monday that Stachowiak, a 10-year Birch veteran, will play a key role in developing and implementing the company’s technology strategy at a time of unprecedented growth and innovation at Birch. In his new role, Stachowiak will be working to ensure the adoption of innovative technologies to gain operational efficiencies and support organizational objectives.

This newly formed CTO role reflects increasing synergies between voice and data delivery technologies with cloud computing and hosted IT services. It also reaffirms Birch’s increased emphasis on innovation and advanced technologies. “I’m pleased to announce that Tom Stachowiak will move into the newly created role of Chief Technology Officer (CTO) with oversight of Birch’s IT, Cloud, Engineering, Product Development and Field Tech teams. Tom has demonstrated the leadership skills, focus and judgment required to take our complex technology teams to the levels called for in our strategic plan. His extraordinary vision and operational expertise will be critical in Birch’s next phase of growth,” said Vincent M. Oddo, president and CEO of Birch..

Stachowiak said, “I am excited to transition to this new role at Birch and looking forward to furthering our technology goals through creativity and innovation, which will culminate in a superior end-user experience. With unified communications and Cloud technologies, platforms and protocols converging to deliver more sophisticated services and capabilities, Birch is uniquely positioned to take advantage of these emerging industry trends. To that end, we plan to add big data, business analytics and software defined networking to our offerings.”

Stachowiak has held progressive leadership roles at Birch and has 18 years of experience in successfully leading teams in software development, cloud and network engineering and IT infrastructure. Stachowiak’s appointment to CTO is an advancement that perfectly integrates his former roles as VP of IT and VP of Engineering. Prior to joining Birch in 2005, he served at Verso Technologies building and operating VoIP soft switches and application servers and at Syracuse University conducting research on applying IP technologies to military command and control systems and distance learning.

Stachowiak remarked, “My main objective will be to develop our cloud offerings to provide a superior service experience to our business customers. I will also focus on boosting customer self-service capabilities to provide maximum flexibility and efficiency that are essential in a fast paced business environment. My goal is to help Birch become a thought leader in the IT industry and build a technology platform that enables rapid innovation, which will allow us to stay ahead of our competition.  Our focus is and will continue to be the customer.”

About Birch Communications

Birch Communications, Inc. is a leading technology service provider of IP-based communications, broadband, cloud and IT services to small, mid-sized, enterprise and wholesale businesses. Our services comprise voice, network, cloud and IT services in all 50 U.S. states, Washington DC, Canada and Puerto Rico. For more information, visit birch.com.

Media Contact:
Tim Phelps
Director of Marketing Communications
Birch Communications, Inc.
816-300-1456
tim.phelps@birch.com