As co-founder and EVP at Patton Electronics, Burton A. Patton is responsible for global sales, technical service, and marketing functions. Mr. Patton leads the organization’s efforts to make known Patton’s capabilities to support enterprise, carrier, and industrial customers with a broad range of equipment and services for electronic communication networks. He plays an active role in executive management decisions and strategic planning and business development to create revenue, profit and growth. With over 20 years in direct and channel-based sales, plus product-management, corporate-advertising, and business-development experience, Mr. Patton is known within and outside the company for his devotion to building lasting relationships with customers, partners, and industry peers. Mr. Patton holds a Bachelor of Science in Marketing from University ofMaryland and isa member of the Patton Electronics Board of Directors. He resides in the Maryland suburbs of Washington D.C.

Patton Rocks the VoIP World with SmartNode Gateways

For the cover story of our April InfoTech Spotlight, we sat down with Burt Patton, executive vice president and co-founder of Gaithersburg, Maryland-based Patton Electronics to talk about the future of VoIP and other “over-IP” technologies that are integral to truly Unified Communications.

Robert is the president and founder of ABP International, Inc. As an expert in market development and product distribution Mr. Messer saw the need for a Technology Distribution Company to help create momentum in emerging technology niches like VoIP by aggregating "Best of breed" products, and combining with professional technical support, training and focused marketing to help resellers and systems integrators embrace the new technology.

Chad Krantz, Executive Director of Channel Sales for Broadvox Communications, is a skilled sales and marketing executive with a deep telecommunication industry background. His vast experience with telecom hardware and networks built for the SMB and Enterprise telecommunication marketplace provides him with a keen understanding that benefits his channel partners. With over 15 years in the communications’ industry, he understands the unique issues involved with doing business successfully in this marketplace.

Prior to joining Broadvox, Chad held management positions with NewSouth Communications, NuVox Communications, and Carrier Services, Inc. Chad holds a Bachelor of Science degree from Emory & Henry College and a Masters in Business Administration degree from Lenoir Rhyne University. He also holds the SSMP and SSCA SIP certifications.

As well as providing executive leadership to Patton Electronics’ European Headquarters, Patton-Inalp, Ramon Felder provides strategic direction and oversight to Patton’s Converged IP product management team. Mr. Felder played an instrumental role in the initial development and marketing of Patton’s flagship brand, the SmartNodeTM line of VoIP gateway, router, and IAD and session border controller products. Mr. Felder has over 15 years in the telecom industry, including complex hardware and software projects, commercialization of carrier and consumer products, and as sales support and network engineering experience. He also served on the leadership team for a European research project on IP-based interactive multi-media services. As a Product Manager he led a complete line of least-cost routers to a leading position in the emerging market with annual sales over 8 Mio CHF. Mr. Felder holds the Diplôme d'Ingénieur MicroTechnologie, École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (Dipl. Ing. MT. EFPL) from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne. Mr. Felder resides in the Bern, Switzerland area.