Management Team
Ernest Carey | CEO
Mr. Carey has spent over 40 years in the communications industry with SBC/AT&T and Goodman Networks, Inc. Throughout his long telecommunications industry career, Mr. Carey has successfully managed a variety of vast and complex systems and networks, including responsibility for all aspects of one of the nation’s largest wireline and wireless infrastructures. In his leadership roles, he’s developed growth strategies, portfolio expansion strategies and operational excellence on a large scale in numerous settings, including serving as Chief Operating Officer for Goodman Networks, Inc. and now in his consulting business.
During his 40 plus year career, Mr. Carey has served in numerous network positions in planning, engineering, construction, regulatory affairs and operations in the United Kingdom from 1990 through 1994. Immediately prior to his move to Dallas, Texas in 2007, where he served as AT&T’s Senior Vice President – Engineering and Construction for both the wireline and wireless networks nationwide, Ernest led the technical development team that helped develop AT&T’s IPTV product that became known as U-verse, where he served as Vice President of Advanced Network Technologies. In 2016 Mr. Carey founded J. Carey, LLC. a telecommunications consultancy that works with numerous companies in this space as well as supporting various financial companies doing M&A activity in the wireless and wireline domains.
He began his career at Southwestern Bell Telephone Company in Houston, Texas after graduating from Texas A&M University – Corpus Christi with a BBA degree. In addition, Mr. Carey has an MBA from the University of Dallas.
Eyal Stein | CTO
Eyal Stein has spent over 20 years in the drone and unmanned aerial vehicle industry specializing in airframe design, flight control theory, and deep learning based data analytics and flight control automation.
His experience includes training and deploying drone operator teams as a service and creating software as a service (SaaS) to enable automated drone data capture, processing, and analytics. Most recently, Mr. Stein served as Chief Technology Officer at 5x5 Technologies Inc, a company he co–founded, where he patented methods and tools for three dimensional drone data capture and analytics.
Mr. Stein also lead software development teams to create AWS based compute engines that generate digital twins of cell tower sites - to enable deep learning reverse CAD analytics that empowers A&E engineering firms when performing structural analysis for the telecommunications industry. Mr. Stein was also responsible for developing roadmaps and growth strategies that drove 5x5 Technologies Inc’s operational excellence and expanded its data processing throughput by relentless innovation.
Prior to 5x5 Technologies Inc, he served as CTO of Autonomous Innovations LLC where he led development efforts on the Drone Virtual Radar system and patenting the technology to enable automated safety oversight for drone operations in the national airspace. Mr. Stein is also a graduate of the University of Massachusetts — Boston with a BS degree in marketing and management.
Kerry Balthrop | CFO
Kerry Balthrop CPA has worked for over 30 years as a financial advisor and tax consultant primarily to closely held businesses and their owners. Her practice includes clients in Dallas, Houston, Florida and New York. She has worked in a variety of industries including manufacturing, wholesale distribution, oil and gas, real estate and professional services.
Her experience includes multi-state operations and federal and state tax compliance.
Prior to opening her practice in 1989 she spent 10 years with Arthur Andersen in Chicago, Houston and Dallas, primarily working with multinational and utility clients. Kerry is a graduate of Rice University with both a BA in Managerial Studies and a Master of Accounting. She also earned a Master of Science in Taxation from Depaul University.
Advisory Board
Todd Ruddick
Todd is a growth strategist with an extensive background in heavily regulated industries, implementing the operational foundation for multiple high growth ventures through both his consulting work and entrepreneurially experience. Additionally, he has a passion for the craft beer industry and is one of the co-founders of the Twisted Hippo Taproom and Eatery, a brewpub located in Chicago.
Prior to Twisted Hippo, Todd was focused on assisting early stage companies as an executive, adviser, and consultant. This experience included being employee zero for Accel Entertainment (NYSE: ACEL), a leading gaming firm that is the largest slot machine terminal operator in Illinois. While at Accel Entertainment, Todd served across multiple functional areas including finance, licensing, and internal operations.
Todd holds an MBA from the MIT Sloan School of Management, an SM in aeronautical/astronautical engineering from MIT, and a BSE in aerospace engineering from the University of Michigan.
Chuck Hildebrant
Mr. Hildebrant began his career in the restaurant industry in the late 1970’s and quickly rose through the ranks to a management position in a national chain based in Ohio. In 1981, Hildebrant made a career move and followed his passion for technology in the communications sector, joining the cellular sector, in what now has become the norm of wireless technology. In the years that followed, Hildebrant built several successful businesses in various business segments, and was instrumental in taking 3 companies public and has sat on boards of directors of several companies that include a Fortune 50 telecom company, all while his company was listed as one of the fastest growing private companies several years running, where yearly revenues were in to the millions.
Hildebrant followed in his family’s footsteps in industry changing ideas, where his family held inventions for tire changers, studded tires, bumper jacks and battery chargers, holding patents himself for small cell appliances for deploying cellular small cell and wi-fi devices.
Bill Hogg
Bill Hogg retired as President, AT&T Technology Operations, and was responsible for all planning, engineering, construction, delivery, and assurance of AT&T’s next generation wireless and wireline technologies for consumer, business, and government customers. In addition, Bill was responsible for planning, engineering and deployment of the enterprise cloud, compute, and storage infrastructure globally.
Prior to his most recent role, Bill served as President-Technology Development, responsible for the development of AT&T’s products and services, digital experiences for customers, and systems supporting the operations across AT&T’s networks and services. In addition, he was responsible for AT&T’s information and network security strategy, standards, and platform development.
Bill has been instrumental in the planning and execution of many large-scale company-wide initiatives. This includes the complex merger integration activities following the consolidation of Cingular and AT&T Wireless; and leading the 2G, 3G and 4G LTE wireless network build and 5G small cell build. Bill has over 30 years of telecom and leadership experience in a broad number of roles from engineering to global customer service.
Bill earned Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in Electrical Engineering from the Georgia Institute of Technology, as well as a Master of Business Administration from the University of South Florida.