NTCA names Michael Romano as senior VP of policy

Michael Romano, NTCAThe National Telecommunications Cooperative Association's (NTCA) appointment of Michael Romano as its Senior VP of Policy is yet another move to better serve its independent ILEC members.  

Serving in a new position that was created through the merger of NTCA's Government Affairs and Legal and Industry Divisions, Romano will be will be charged with managing the association's regulatory and industry efforts.

Before taking his new post at NTCA, Romano was counsel at Bingham McCutchen, LLP, where he advised telecom carriers on how to navigate the broadband stimulus funding process and other federal broadband network funding opportunities, in addition to negotiating agreements on various issues including equipment and software licensing and sales, outsourcing arrangements and dispute settlements.

In addition to his recent role at Bingham McCutchen, Romano comes to the NTCA with plenty of direct service provider telecom experience from stints at Global Telecom and Technology, America Online (NYSE: AOL) and several legal department positions at Level 3 Communications (Nasdaq: LVLT).

The appointment of Romano to this new position and the merger of the two divisions, which comes a little over a month since Shirley Bloomfield rejoined NTCA as CEO, is part of the organization's move coordinate its policy activity into one centralized department to address the bevy of issues that its independent ILEC constituency is facing.

"This reorganization will allow us to combine energy and efforts across legislative, regulatory and industry boundaries.  It will enhance the consistency of our message and initiatives in all policy-making arenas to ensure our members are able to continue to deliver affordable and robust communications services to rural Americans," Bloomfield said in a release. 

For more:
- see the release here

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