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Learning.net Management Team
George J. Vasilakos
Chief Executive Officer
George J. Vasilakos has spent thirty-seven years in the computer and telecommunications industry. His experience encompasses corporate management at the CEO level for both public and private companies.
Since January 1993, Mr. Vasilakos has been a member of the Pentium Group, an entity which provides capital and capital raising services along with operational, financial and business planning management expertise to private or publicly companies.
Prior to 1993, Mr. Vasilakos served as President and CEO of Com Systems, Inc. ("CSI"), a west coast long distance company with $140 million in annual revenues and President of Resurgens Communication Group ("Resurgens"). Resurgens, Metro Media Communications and LDDS subsequently completed a 3-way combination forming the fourth-largest long distance carrier in the United States.
From 1983 and 1988, Mr. Vasilakos served as President and CEO of ALC Communications a publicly traded long distance company, and its predecessor Lexitel Corporation, a privately held long distance firm. During this time, Lexitel grew from a $12 Million business into ALC with over $400 Million in annual revenues.
As CEO Mr. Vasilakos completed three acquisitions with annual sales of $12, $40 and $300 million, respectively. Mr. Vasilakos was one of the founders of SPRINT joining as employee twenty-seven in July 1973.
During his time with SPRINT, the company grew from a start up to a diversified company with over $600 Million in annual revenues and operating profits in 1982 of about $50 Million.
He held a number of executive positions including Vice President of Marketing, Vice President of Sales and Marketing, Vice President of Operations and ultimately Executive Vice President in charge of sales, marketing, operations, engineering and new business development.
John M. Gibbons
Chief Financial Officer
For more than three decades, John Gibbons has guided a number of companies to fiscal growth and success. Prior to joining Learning.net, Gibbons served as the president, chief executive officer and director of The Sports Club Company, the premier developer of luxury sports and fitness clubs. During his six-year tenure at the company, he managed a $40 million initial public offering and increased revenue from $16 million to a landmark $90 million, experiencing 14 quarters of sustained revenue growth. Gibbons is the former general manager and senior vice president of Com Systems, Inc., a full-service long distance provider that merged with MCI/WorldCom in September 1993. Under his financial leadership, CSI saw its stock price rise dramatically.
In addition to his work with multimillion-dollar companies, Gibbons has extensive experience in counseling venture capital-funded start-ups as well. He has served as a chief financial officer for Group Technologies Corporation, a surgical instrument and health care product company, and Digital Sound Corporation, a digital communications firm, assisting both companies from the development stage to corporate maturity. Gibbons launched his career with Price Waterhouse in 1970, serving as an auditor and subsequently a management consultant before joining Computer & Communications Technology Corp. in 1973 as a finance manager.
A graduate of the University of Notre Dame, Gibbons earned his MBA from the University of Southern California and is a certified public accountant. He currently sits on the board of directors for three companies.
Terry Heiney
General Manager and Chief Learning Officer
Terry Heiney founded several successful training development businesses in a thirty year career as a consultant to Fortune 500 organizations. In addition, he was vice president of sales and service for Jet Express, a startup airline during its during its formation in 1984-85.
Terry began his consulting career with Maritz Communications in St. Louis in 1973. He left Maritz to form an audio visual production company that delivered customer service training to hospitality industry and airline clients. During this period he developed the management development system for Ramada Inns that helped them transition to the Ramada Renaissance program. This effort included management training along with procedures manuals that integrated property operations. Terry also developed a similar program for A&W Root Beer, and during this time worked extensively with Continental Airlines in sales and service systems.
Because of his work with Continental, Terry was well positioned to move into the airline startup market after deregulation in 1978. His production company worked with Midway Airlines (the first all-jet startup after deregulation), New York Air, and Braniff (II) to implement complete sales and service programs (training and procedures). This culminated in Terry's participation in the Jet Express startup group.
In 1987, as airline startups became more infrequent, Terry founded a training and consulting firm that specialized in the design and implementation of training for high technology businesses. This business evolved into Acme Training in 1994. One of Acme's specialties became training plans for the implementation of new hardware/software systems across the enterprise. Most recently, Terry developed an electronic delivery system of service manuals (on CD-ROM) for Alcon Surgical. He assisted Kawasaki Motors U.S.A. in rolling out an automated parts system to their dealer network, supplying dealer as well as key operator training. He has also designed and implemented numerous sales training programs for Xerox Printing Systems sales reps.
Terry has specialized in the development of training tools that have a positive impact on bottom line performance. For the last few years he pioneered the production of electronic performance support tools including web-based training, and communications via Adobe Acrobat PDF documents.
Terry has a Ph.D. in educational theory from the University of Toledo.
Douglas Wolfgram
Founder/Chief Technology Officer
Doug Wolfgram is founder, CTO and board member of The Learning Network. Doug developed the original concept and built the prototype distance learning system for TLN. He designed and implemented the technology architecture including redundancy, fail-over, security and authentication for our system. Doug has built the technology department including programming, systems, customer service and tech support. He has provided analysis of scalability requirements for technology in line with our anticipated growth plan, including disaster recovery, intrusion detection, bandwidth requirements, simultaneous user studies and migration costs. He has also provided our technology business development direction, locating and implementing new technologies for distance education.
Doug has a strong background in technology and related media. He founded one of the world's first interactive media communications companies, wrote PCPaint and GRASP, pioneering interactive communications on personal computers, created interactive communications projects for AST, Compaq, Dell, Zenith, Hitachi, NEC, Sharp, Seiko, Epson, Toshiba and many others. Doug pioneered enterprise Media Asset Management strategies in 1994. He has won numerous awards for adaptation of technology in communications including share of an Emmy for work on Children's Television show, "Where in the World is Carmen San Diego?"
Bruce Cunningham
Vice President Planning and Marketing
Mr. Cunningham has forty years experience in the business world. He has served as a planning or marketing officer with American Airlines, Pan American World Airways, New York Air and SystemOne Corporation. He has also been a consultant with Booz-Allen & Hamilton, a securities analyst at the Ford Foundation and was a Director at the Civil Aeronautics Board when it was in the process of deregulating the airline industry.
A graduate of Norwich University, Mr. Cunningham also has an MBA from New York University. He is an advisor to a regional planning association, is active in community and church organizations, sits on the board of two companies, and is the president of the Woodlands Cycling Club.
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