Three area businesses have been selected as finalists for the Marion Chamber of Commerce’s Distinguished Business Award. The finalists are (in alphabetic order): Members of the Marion Chamber of Commerce were asked to submit nominations in October for the Distinguished Business Award. Nominations were sought for Chamber member businesses that have made significant contributions to the community. The Distinguished Business Award finalists and winner were selected by the members of the Marion Chamber of Commerce Awards Committee, including the Mayor of the City of Marion Robert Butler, Gail Barger with Priority Staffing Group Ltd., Dalus Ben Avi with the Marion Chamber of Commerce, Kristin Beutel with the Marion Chamber of Commerce, Ashlee Church with Volkswagen of Marion, Misty Cobb with Banterra Bank, Dana Dooley with HireLevel powered by Extra Help, Kenya Garner with State Farm Insurance, Cindy Gibbons with U.S. Bank, Ashley Gott with Bank of Herrin, Janet Jensen with Auto Credit of Southern Illinois, Doug Kimmel with Veterans Airport of Southern Illinois, Brian McHugh with BNI STAR Chapter, Bill Nielsen with Flanders Electric, Sara Perdue with Harbory Medical Cannabis Dispensary, Christy Pulliam with StaffQuick, Mindy Reid with Banterra Bank, Rick Richert with Flanders Electric and Kimberly Walker with Kemper CPA Group LLP.
The winner of the Distinguished Business Award will be announced during the 97th annual Marion Chamber of Commerce Awards Banquet & Auction on Friday, January 19 at The Pavilion. The event begins at 5:30 p.m. Tickets to attend are $60/person or $400/table (seats 8) and are available by calling the Marion Chamber of Commerce at 618.997.6311, visiting marionillinois.com or emailing director@marionillinois.com.
Information about the finalists is below.
Clearwave Communications:
Clearwave Communications has been an established business in Southern Illinois since May of 1995 and operates as a facilities-based Competitive Local Exchange Carrier (CLEC) offering voice and data services. Clearwave is a full service Internet Service Provider (ISP) with more than 2,100 route and 150,000 strand miles of fiber over their 24 county service area.
“We are very strong in providing fiber service for cellular backhaul, education, healthcare, banking, and a wide variety of industries, serving more than 1,800 enterprise fiber data accounts and 200 lit tower backhaul circuits with the Big 4 carriers,” said Mike Phalin, vice president of sales and marketing for Clearwave Communications.
Clearwave’s network construction is performed with in-house crews which yields significant network quality, cost benefits, and short service intervals.
“Clearwave Communication’s fiber optic network was custom designed and purpose built to provide superior performance metrics for our customers,” Mike said. “Our wavelength services will allow Clearwave’s Ethernet solutions to achieve the highest economies of scale and reliability. Meeting the growing bandwidth needs of businesses and service providers while focusing on our core services and strengths within our region is a natural fit for us.”
Clearwave Communications was founded by Bob Kelley and Scott Riggs. From 1996 to 1999, Clearwave Communications was a paging service reseller and an agent for First Cellular, Verizon, SunCom and Sprint PCS and an agent for Dish Network and Directv. In 2001, Clearwave developed and launched dial-up and fixed wireless internet service.
In 2002, Clearwave applied for and was issued Competitive Local Exchange Carrier (CLEC) license and began marketing local telephone and long distance service. From 2003-2009, Clearwave began development of facilities based telco operations, including building a network operations center in Harrisburg and was collocated in 21 Verizon and AT&T Central Officers in Southern Illinois.
In 2010, Clearwave applied for and won a federal grant of $31 million and a state grant of $11 million to build a 740 mile buried fiber optic network that connected 232 community anchor institutions. The project was completed on-time and on-budget in August of 2013. During that time, Clearwave began sales of commercial fiber to businesses, subscribers and mobile network operators and built and continues to operate a state-of-the-art network operating center (NOC) in Marion which houses 10+ employees.
In 2017, Clearwave has more than 2,100 route miles and 150,000 strand miles of fiber, passing approximately 20,000 businesses and serving approximately 1,700 business. The company has connected more than 200 mobile celluar towers and roughly 80 employees.
Officers of Clearwave include:
- Matt Dement, president and chief executive officer
- Matt Dement joined Clearwave in April 2017 as president & chief executive officer. Prior to joining Clearwave, Matt was senior vice president of strategy & corporate development for Windstream, a Fortune 500 company and national provider of advanced network communications and technology solutions. While at Windstream, Matt focused on developing and implementing various strategic initiatives, including various M&A projects as well as consumer, enterprise and wholesale fiber deployments. Prior to Windstream, Matt served as a senior vice president in the communications and media group at Stephens Inc., a full-service independent investment bank. During his 10-year tenure at Stephens, Matt advised on dozens of transactions with a combined transaction value of more than $30 billion. He spent significant time on both buy-side and sell-side assignments, as well as performed other strategic advisory work for both public and private companies. Matt received a bachelor of arts degree in business administration and economics from Rhodes College.
- Scott Riggs, chief customer officer
- Scott currently resides in Norris City with his wife and three children; he also has 2 grown children. In 1986, Scott graduated from Ohio University with an undergraduate degree in business. From 2001 to 2017, he served as president of Clearwave Communications. For almost four years, he was regional vice president of sales for Telecorp PCS in Jackson, Mississippi, as well as in Nashville, Tennessee. Prior to that, Scott spent six and one-half years as the general manager for Mercury Communications of Jackson, Mississippi. He managed an RSA for Illinois Cellular Telephone Company. He also served as regional manager for SuperAmerica (a division of Ashland Oil) managing seven Retail Convenient Stores with total P&L responsibilities.
- James Ide, chief financial officer
- Jim Ide has been CFO of several publicly traded and private companies in the telecommunications industry, including Navini Networks, Next Level Communications (NASDAQ: NXTV), and Westec Acquisition Corp. Earlier in his career, Jim spent over ten years at Motorola Inc. in various audit, manufacturing controllership, and financial capacities; including four years living in China as the senior operations controller during the greenfield startup Motorola’s China cellular phone business. Jim began his career as an international auditor at Arthur Andersen & Co. in Chicago. He is a CPA with a Bachelor’s degree from Gonzaga University in Accounting and Spanish (1985), and a Masters degree in International Management from the Thunderbird School of Global Management. Jim joined Clearwave in June of 2014, and currently lives in Marion with his family.
- Aaron Carian, chief technology officer
- Aaron Carian lives in Harrisburg. He graduated from Washington University in 2003 with a Bachelor of Science degree in electrical engineering. While at school he gained valuable experience working with the Business School IT department to help maintain their data network. Prior to coming to Clearwave in 2004, Aaron worked with various other small businesses and organizations to deploy manage and maintain data networks of various sizes. His work so far at Clearwave has included redesigning much of the voice and data networks for optimized speed and higher reliability and also greater scalability to allow quicker deployment of new services and new serving areas.
- Ray Cagle, chief operating officer
- Roy rejoined Clearwave in 2007 after spending a year as the chief operating officer at Kite Networks, a wireless broadband and municipal wi-fi service provider. Roy resides in Marion and is married with two sons. He earned a Bachelor of Science degree in business administration from the University of North Carolina. Roy has been in the telecommunications industry since 1989. He was with Southwestern Bell Mobile Systems from 1989 to 1997, the last two years serving as vice president and general manager for Central Illinois. At Tritel Communications in Nashville, Tennessee, he served as regional vice president for a year and a half and was general manager of the Central Division for Skytel from 1999 to 2001. In June of 2003, Roy became the chief operating officer for Signatel Telephone Corporation in Fort Worth, Texas, and assumed the additional responsibility of chief operating officer for C5, Inc. in May 2004. Since 1999, Roy has also been involved in consulting work for several firms through Knox Corporate Development, specializing in strategic planning and management process training. Roy joined Clearwave Communications as chief operating officer in June 2005.
- Mike Phalin, vice president of sales and marketing
- Mike and his wife and two sons live in Harrisburg. He earned an undergraduate degree from Southern Illinois University in liberal arts, focusing on sales and marketing. Mike worked at Northwestern Mutual Life Insurance Company while attending college and after as a licensed agent from 1993-1995. He then entered into the wireless business as an account executive for Douglas Communications in Carbondale. Mike became the indirect sales manager for Illinois Nine Cellular in Harrisburg. He then went on to become the director of sales for Telecorp PCS in Jackson, Mississippi. In March 2001, Mike assumed the role of vice president of sales & marketing for Clearwave.
Clearwave also contributes to the following Marion Chamber of Commerce events/committees: Golf Scramble, Grad Spree, Community Day, Block Par-tee, Annual Awards Banquet & Auction.
“Being nominated for this award is a tremendous honor and privilege and we appreciate the recognition,” Mike said. “The entire Clearwave team has worked very hard to grow our company and to have a positive impact on the businesses we provide services to, and to change the landscape of telecommunications in our region. With nearly 200 businesses served with our fiber data services, Marion has grown to be our largest market out of the 134 cities & communities we serve in Southern Illinois. The Marion Chamber of Commerce has been instrumental in our growth in Marion and Williamson County and we are proud to be a member of this progressive and vibrant chamber organization.”
Heartland Regional Medical Center:
Marion Memorial Hospital opened in 1947. Heartland Regional Medical Center opened its doors on December 22, 2002, making it the first new hospital built in Southern Illinois in more than 40 years.
Today, Heartland Regional employs more than 600 dedicated staff members throughout Williamson County. In addition to more than a dozen cutting edge service lines, the health network includes the SIMCA Family Medicine clinics, River to River Heart Group, the Heartland Family Birthing Center, the Center for Breast Health, the Joint and Spine Center, Southern Illinois Urology, the Diagnostic Imaging Center of Carterville and more.
Heartland Regional Medical Center has been in continuous operation for 70 years, has a nationally accredited Chest Pain Center, is an Emergent Stroke-Ready Hospital, and has supported multiple 2017 Marion Chamber of Commerce leadership initiatives including Live2Lead: Southern Illinois, Mastermind Groups and Lunch & Learns.
Marion native Melisa Adkins, RN, BSN, MBA, began serving as chief executive officer of Heartland Regional Medical Center on February 13, 2017. Melisa served as Heartland Regional’s chief nursing officer from 2011-2015 and also worked as a nurse in the old Marion Memorial Hospital. Just before rejoining Heartland Regional, Melisa served as the chief nursing officer of Physicians Regional Medical Center in Knoxville, Tennessee, where she provided administrative oversight for 32 departments.
“More than 2 dozen, nationally recognized, board certified surgeons, cardiologists, pulmonologists, urologists, family medicine specialists and more come to Heartland Regional from all over the globe,” said Herby Voss, director of marketing, public relations and business development at Heartland Regional Medical Center. “They’ve chosen to make Southern Illinois their home and are devoted to caring for its citizens.”
Heartland Regional was the presenting sponsor for the following:
- American Heart Association Heart Walk
- Artstarts presentation of “The Hunchback of Notre Dame”
- Hospice of Southern Illinois’ 9th Annual Red Carpet Gala
- Southern Illinois Women’s’ Health Conference
- Heartland Regional Aquatics Center at The HUB Recreation Center
- The Heartland Regional Medical Center All Inclusive Playground in 2018
- John A. Logan
- Rend Lake
- Southeastern Illinois
- Shawnee Community
Heartland Regional’s volunteer Chaplain Corp numbers more than two dozen local citizens and provides spiritual support to patients, families and staff 365 days a year.
Heartland Regional’s involvement in the Marion Chamber of Commerce includes:
- Hosting the inaugural Marion Chamber Block Par-tee
- Live2Lead: Southern Illinois sponsorship and participation
- Hosting, sponsoring and participating in Mastermind Groups and Lunch & Learns
- Sponsoring and participating in the Golf Scramble, Annual Awards Banquet & Auction and Community Day
- Using numerous Chamber marketing tools to promote hospital community outreach events
- Serving on various Chamber committees
House 2 Home Realty:
House 2 Home has been in business since 2008. They have three locations: Lake of Egypt, Marion and Carterville. Along with the real estate portion that has 23 agents, they also have a rental department: House 2 Rent.
House 2 Home began in 2008 with a single office in Marion.
“We have grown from 12 million dollars in sales a year to more than 43 million at the time of this writing,” said Celia Robertson, owner of House 2 Home Realty. “H2H prides ourselves in being charity-minded as well as providing the lowest fees guaranteed in real estate. We will never let a deal fall apart because of commission.”
Celia has a minor in accounting and a bachelor’s in workforce education and development. She spent 23 years working in higher education and ran a successful vending company before starting her career in real estate. Celia has been a realtor for 10 years and a managing broker for the last eight years. House 2 Home Realty has 23 agents and a property manager.
“House 2 Home prides itself in the many charitable events we hold and/or donate to. Each broker contributes part of their commission to local charities and H2H matches this donation. We have donated over $5,000 to date,” Celia said. “We have also been a two year sponsor for Sack Hunger where more than 25,000 items were donated to local food pantries.
“For the last two years we have also raffled off a mannequin Christmas tree and there are two currently placed at the Civic Center. Also, we have awarded a Herrin and Marion senior a $500 scholarship the past two years. And, we recently held a yard sale where $3,000 was raised and the proceeds went to St. Jude’s, Shriner's and Hurricane Relief Fund. Agents have Pay It Forward Cards where they can pay for individuals meals at restaurants, drive thrus, etc. In 2015 and 2016, we have had a food drive at Thanksgiving and Toy Drive at Christmas.”
House 2 Home has also been an active member of the Marion Chamber of Commerce including sponsoring the annual golf scramble, attending several monthly Chamber luncheons, donating to the Annual Awards Banquet & Auction, providing Chamber member discounts and more.
“When I began House 2 Home Realty I was, for lack of a better word, the under dog. I came in when the market was shaky and people were upside down with their mortgages. I thought there was a better way to do things and most didn't like it,” Celia said. “To think that H2H is being recognized for an award in this industry is so exciting and I'm humbled and filled with gratitude. I can't thank the committee enough for H2H to be a finalist for this award.”
This is the first year the Distinguished Business Award is being presented. Past winners of all Marion Chamber of Commerce awards can be viewed at www.marionillinois.com/award-winners.
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