Ken Banks
President and CEO
Ken founded IPC Technologies, Inc. in 1981 and continues to be involved in the daily operations of IPC.
Ken began his career with Burroughs Corp. in 1973 upon graduating from Old Dominion University. After serving in a management position with Burroughs he joined a small technology firm and served for two years prior to starting IPC. Ken has served on the business councils of various technology partners including Sun Microsystems, Dest Corp. NBI and most recently the Managed Service Providers Alliance.
In addition to managing IPC Technologies, Ken has served as President of Pipestream Technologies a CRM software company that was recently sold to Remedy Corporation, now BMC Software. Ken presently serves on the board of the Better Business Bureau, The House of New Beginnings and the advisory board of Needle’s Eye Ministries.
Jeff Andrews
Executive Vice President, Sales & Marketing
After meeting Ken Banks at a trade show in 1981, at the Richmond Hyatt House, Jeff worked with Ken to help found IPC. With more than 50 years of experience in sales and marketing, Jeff brings unique insight into business development, branding and communications in today’s high-tech marketplace. He also understands the value of old-fashioned customer service, and spends time each week with customers in the Eastern U.S., from New York to Miami, and West to Kihei, Hawaii. A native of the San Francisco Bay area, Jeff studied at the University of San Francisco, Michigan State University and Boston University. He lives with his wife, Nancy, and their golden retriever, Riley, on Vilano Beach, St. Augustine, Fla. They enjoy hanging out on the beach with friends at The Serenata Beach Club, and golfing on the weekends at TPC Sawgrass. Jeff and Nancy attend The Cathedral Basilica of St. Augustine. Jeff is also a frequent speaker for a variety of ministries and is now working with Doug McCary, former FBI Agent, with His Light Ministries and SWAT Radio in Jacksonville, as well as Doug Jones, another former FBI Agent and the Society of Former Special Agents of the FBI, Inc.
Steven Banks
Vice President of Sales
After attending Roanoke College, Steven returned to Richmond and began working at IPC Technologies in the summer of 2007. He spent his first two years on the engineering team providing customer support and assisting with special projects. He then moved into a business development and account management role, serving customers throughout Virginia. As Director of Sales for ShoreTel Telecom, he has primary responsibility for telecom solution sales as well as IPC’s FastSpectrum offering. Steven currently lives in Richmond and enjoys running, fishing and playing golf.
Bill Southers
Senior Vice President, Engineering
After graduating from Virginia Tech in 1975, Bill gained his early electronics and engineering experience by working for Penril Data Systems, Delta Data Systems and Exxon Office Systems as a system technician. The next twenty five years have been spent at IPC Technologies in growing capacities. Beginning as a start-up, Bill helped grow IPC’s services business from a cost center to a profit center. As corporate IT requirements grew, Bill helped IPC to stay relevant as technology provided end users ever-increasing choices. Most recently, in order to deliver services in an increasingly cost conscious environment, Bill helped create IPC’s Managed Services practice.
Dave Sanchez
Vice President of National Cloud Services
Dave has more than 20 years of communications system experience. Dave grew up in northern California and attended California State University at San Jose and Sacramento. His depth of knowledge is derived from working with large clients in the manufacturing, financial services, healthcare and legal industries, providing solutions that have integrated technology with business objectives. Certifications in security, sales and network architecture have enabled him to help multi-location companies reduce the complexity of managing networks and equipment. Dave lives with his wife, Lynn, in the River North area of Chicago. Lynn and Dave attend Immaculate Conception Catholic Church, where they are active in service work for the community.
Rajiv Perera
Senior Consultant
Rajv Perera is an experienced IT executive and entrepreneur who empowers organizations to use the Internet as an effective tool for growing their business and serving their customers. He is an evangelist for disruptive technologies, but also takes pride in creating practical solutions to meet customer needs. Rajiv has been in IT for more than 25 years and has covered many aspects of it, from implementing solutions and managing infrastructure to developing applications, setting IT strategy and performing due diligence for acquired companies. He holds a BBA in computer information systems and an MBA from the University of Louisiana at Monroe, and an MS in management information systems from the University of Virginia.
Vince Smoral
Director of Project Management
A native of Danville Virginia, Vince comes to IPC Technologies with a strong background in telecommunication product development and deployment. While at Motorola he specialized in development of networking devices which transported legacy data protocols and voice. Additionally, Vince was a key contributor in the development of 2-way paging at Motorola and holds a related patent. Following Motorola, Vince worked at Advanced Micro Devices where he was Director of Business Development and Operations for specialized low cost computers. Since moving to Richmond, Vince has worked as a Program Manager responsible for Network Infrastructure and Network Management upgrades. Vince holds a BS in Mathematics from Clemson University, a MS in Computer and Information Science from Georgia Tech and a MS in Management from Frostburg University.
Simon Newberry
Director of Technical Escalations
Simon Newberry joined IPC early in 2017, moving from Columbus, Ohio, where he worked as a unified communications engineer specializing in enterprise call center products for locations spread across North America. He enjoys exploring any new technology that helps bring people together to achieve common goals, and invests much of his free time in his own home network and test lab. Simon now leads IPC’s technical support department with a passion for process improvement, continuous professional development of the engineers on his team, and providing world-class solutions that exceed client expectations.
Curt Island
Vice President of Carrier & Service Providers CLEC/ILEC
Curt has been in the telecommunications industry for more than 15 years, working for six years as an independent sales agent. He leverages his experience to help businesses design, procure and implement network and cloud services to create turnkey solutions. He believes in discovering and understanding customers’ business requirements and the business impacts of every technology-based decision so that he can make sound recommendations that deliver rapid ROI. He is married with four kids and participates in triathlons as well as being involved in the kids’ activities.
Kurt Wright
Director of Implementations
Kurt has been with IPC more than 25 years, having joined the company when its primary focus was contract consulting services. He spent the first 10 years with IPC as a contract resource at Philip Morris USA, followed by an engagement at the U.S. Postal Service headquarters. He subsequently worked as an engineer in IPC’s TechFirst managed services division, ultimately becoming director of direct of TechFirst operations. Today, Kurt oversees IPC’s implementation projects. In this role he likes to focus on understanding the customer’s objectives and delivering an appropriate solution that meets those objectives as well as the customer’s long-term business needs.
Mark Kruger
Director of Mitel Operations and UCaaS IoT Evangelist
Mark anticipated the shift in the voice and unified communications (UC) market to hosted and cloud-based solutions, and formed Converged Solutions and Services to help customers take advantage of the UC-as-a-Service model. Mark brings that passion and vision to IPC, along with deep technical knowledge of the Mitel UC platform. Prior to founding CSS, he led one of the largest Mitel and Toshiba dealers in the Southeast. He holds technical certifications in Mitel MiVoice, MiCollab, MiVoice Border Gateway, MiContact Center, MiVoice Office 250, Mitel Customer Service Manager and Mitel Standard Linux.
Jack Knocke
General Manager, IoT Solutions Group
Jack Knocke is an evangelist and thought leader in leveraging connected devices to efficiently extend traditional bounds of humans and machines. As General Manager of IPC’s IoT Solutions Group, Jack is helping companies leverage these new technologies to solve mission-critical challenges. Jack is a 30-year veteran of the telecom industry. Prior to founding The VAR Advisor and IoT Advisor Group, he spent five years as COO for master agency MicroCorp, Inc. Previously, he held senior business development and operations positions, and spent 14 years with GTE/Verizon leading new initiatives in marketing, product development, systems integration, product fulfillment and finance. Jack is also an adjunct professor at Florida State College at Jacksonville, teaching entrepreneurship and other business courses.
