experience in establishing,financing and building early-stage companies, which proved to be invaluable as his career unfolded. Desiring to gain operations experience, John accepted an Account Executive position with Hewlett Packard, selling technical computing products in Silicon Valley. The lure of a smaller, faster-growing company caused Mr. Russo to leave HP in 1986 and join Sun Microsystems, where he developed a new sales territory and closed $500K in new account sales in a predominately IBM-installed base. Entrepreneurial by nature, John identified a viable business opportunity and founded GlobalSoft in 1988 to integrate and distribute UNIX, PC and Apple products worldwide. In 1990, that firm's initial customer base was absorbed by GeoNet Communications.

As CEO and Chairman of the Board of GeoNet Communications, Mr. Russo built one of the earliest ISPs in the world delivering cost-effective Internet solutions to businesses, executing on a personal vision of the Internet as a disruptive technology. From 1990 to 1998, John financed and grew that capitalintensive startup through the creative use of accounts receivable, vendor financing, capital equipment leasing, bank credit and venture capital. In June of 1998 he sold the company to Level 3 Communications. For the past eight years John has been a private equity investor, board member of Libritas, and advisor to senior management in five private equity investments. He grew his investment portfolio from $14M to $30M in 2000. Since 2001 he has also served as CEO of Russo Brothers Development, Inc., a residential real estate development firm.