Enterprise / Corporate

Verizon business technologies and industry-specific solutions bring you closer to your customer -- helping you work better together, making new opportunities possible.

Verizon is known for its networks, operational excellence and financial stability. Unified Connection creates an environment making it easy to bring all those resources to bear to benefit your business.

We are your conduit to Verizon.

We hire Verizon-expertise with 100% focus on Verizon. We know their products and services.

Engage with us to explore how Verizon can simplify and support your business.

Midmarket

Verizon business technologies and industry-specific solutions bring you closer to your customer -- helping you work better together, making new opportunities possible.

Verizon is known for its networks, operational excellence and financial stability. Unified Connection creates an environment making it easy to bring all those resources to bear to benefit your business.

We are your conduit to Verizon.

We hire Verizon-expertise with 100% focus on Verizon. We know their products and services.

Engage with us to explore how Verizon can simplify and support your business.

Public Sector

Verizon business technologies and industry-specific solutions bring you closer to your customer -- helping you work better together, making new opportunities possible.

Verizon is known for its networks, operational excellence and financial stability. Unified Connection creates an environment making it easy to bring all those resources to bear to benefit your business.

We are your conduit to Verizon.

We hire Verizon-expertise with 100% focus on Verizon. We know their products and services.

Engage with us to explore how Verizon can simplify and support your business.

Tom Lair

CEO

Tom Lair is a tenured Executive Leader who presents a full array of General Management, Sales and Marketing expertise. He is recognized as a leader in our industry for establishing and communicating proper market strategy, implementing organizational vision and executing against tactical leadership requirements to drive company goals and revenue. Tom is very accomplished at building and leading all facets of distribution models, both direct and indirect, as well as inside sales. He is known for expanding market share in companies through his strategic and tactical leadership focus and abilities. He is accomplished at building start-up organizations and leading sales organizations from mid-tier sized firms to Fortune 500 companies. He has driven success across numerous customer segments; small business marketplace, mid-tier strategic/premier accounts, Government/Education segment, as well as vertical markets. He has built and led domestic sales operations both Direct and Indirect as well as International teams in Canada and Latin America.

Tom spent many years at Verizon and held numerous positions of increasing responsibility. His last role was AVP Sales for the Retail & Hospitality Vertical and Enterprise Canada for Verizon Terremark. In this role, Tom was responsible for leading a sales organization focused on driving Cloud and IT Solutions sales in domestic US for these Vertical accounts along with all enterprise accounts in Canada. Verizon Terremark is a fairly new organization within Verizon, comprised of the legacy Verizon Business Global Services organization and legacy Terremark company (an acquisition by Verizon). Focus areas include all IT and security solutions portfolios, including colocation, managed services, virtualization and cloud based solutions, managed security services and professional services.

Tom has also held senior leadership positions at Masergy Communications (VP Sales), Qwest (RVP Qwest Solutions), Broadslate Networks (VP Sales), and Expanets (Corporate Director Sales and Marketing Operations).

Tom earned an MBA in Marketing from University of South Florida, and a BS in Commerce from University of Virginia with concentrations in Finance, Marketing and MIS. While at UVA, Tom held the position of President Beta Gamma Sigma Honor Fraternity.

Suzy Hoag

Director of Sales Operations

Suzy spent 33 years at Verizon and held numerous positions of increasing responsibility. She has significant experience in sales, customer service, project management, call center management, financial management, Professional Services and resource assessment/allocation. A proven performer in overall customer satisfaction with a solid track record in exceeding sales and service objectives.

In her last role, Suzy partnered with sales and solution teams as a Service Delivery Architect.

Rick Hoag

Branch Manager | Texas

Rick spent 27 years at Verizon and held numerous positions of increasing responsibility.

• Executive sales leader focused on Enterprise IT infrastructure and Network services.
• Consultative selling - strategize, design, and deploy solutions focused on transformational goals of todays Enterprise organizations.
• Proven record of recruiting and managing high performance sales teams focused on all segments of the market - small business, mid-tier, Enterprise, Government/Education, and vertical markets.

His last role was Regional Sales Director at Verizon Terremark, responsible for leading team of Cloud Principal Sales Consultants through-out US and Canada, managing a client base of $40M to over $100M focused on Data Center Services Portfolio: IAAS/Managed Data Center, Security, Disaster Recovery, Co-Location, and Professional Consulting Services.

• Managed an average sales quota of $20M annually.
• Strong leadership skills with advanced technical knowledge.
• Experience positioning and building relationships across C-levels.
• Employs PMI Value Focused Selling methodology, ITIL principles, Salesforce Automation, Forecast Best Practices, Strategic Account Planning and Eco-System Management.

Rick held various sales and engineering positions within Verizon leveraging entire portfolio of services.

Sherry Potts

VP Finance

Sherry retired from Verizon after a career spanning 29 years. She began her financial accounting career with Verizon in July of 1983 in Westfield, Indiana. Her work experiences include a proven track record with positions held in External Reporting, Advertising, Compensation, Sales and Marketing and Accounting.

In July of 1999, Sherry relocated to the Tampa Bay area where she supported the Florida Sales Branch in Expense and Revenue Administration. She was then promoted to a Regional Business Manager position supporting the Atlantic South GovED team. Most recently, she supported the Small Business Sales Team on the Mass Marketing side tracking sales, setting quotas, managing expenses, headcount, reporting and coordinating executive level presentations.

Sherry graduated from Indiana University with a degree in Retail Management and also graduated from Indiana Wesleyan University with a degree in Business Administration.

Upon retiring from Verizon in March of 2016, Sherry joined Unified Connection as the VP of Finance. In this role, Sherry is responsible for sales tracking, expense and revenue management, reporting, coordination of Human Resource activities and all aspects of finance support for UCX leadership.

Name

Director of Network Operations

Wells Richards

Managing Director

Mr. Richards has extensive experience in starting, building and selling technology sales companies. In 1993, Mr. Richards founded his first technology enterprise, SIMOD Corporation, and grew the company to over 100 employees, $15MM in revenue and 10+% EBITDA in 6 years. SIMOD was ranked #247 on the Inc. 500 List and #45 on Entrepreneur Magazines' list of America's fastest growing companies. The company was sold to Expanets, a division of Northwestern Utility of South Dakota, in 1998.

In 2002, Mr. Richards co-founded three companies (AO Communications, GTS Inc and Phoenix Asset Management) under the holding company Southland Solutions to help large institutions manage their older technology assets as well as assist in transitions to VOIP platforms. GTS ranked #171 on the Entrepreneur Magazine Hot 500 List of 2007. In 30 months, Mr. Richards expanded these companies to a combined $35MM in revenue, 60 employees and 9 offices. Presido, Inc. purchased this entity in 2007.

In 2009 he co-founded his latest technology company, NexTech Partners, Inc, to focus on supporting customers with networking and wireless needs, growing revenues from $700K to $10MM (projected) in 2014.

In 2013, Mr. Richards capitalized on the synergies between hardware and network connectivity and founded Sales and Marketing Contractors, Inc / Unified Connection. In a little over 12 months, the company has grown to one of Verizon's largest agent partners in the US.

Mr. Richards attended Rhodes College in TN.