Thrane & Thrane expands workforce

Thrane & Thrane, a provider of global mobile satellite and radio communications solutions, has expanded its sales department to meet the growing demands for Broadband Global Area Network (BGAN) satellite terminals and for more airtime on the Inmarsat satellite system following the activation earlier this year of Inmarsat’s BGAN service in North America.

Inmarsat, based in London, operates a number of geostationary satellites that extend mobile phone, fax and data communications to every part of the world, except the North and South poles.

For the expansion, Thrane & Thrane has promoted three company sales veterans and hired two new account managers.

“These moves will help us better support our channel partners as we transition from being a direct sales organization to a partner organization, and will also expand our presence to move into new markets for Inmarsat BGAN services with the Explorer family of terminals,” said George Spohn, vice president of sales and marketing.

The company promoted Ken Latham, former director of land mobile products, to the newly created role of director of corporate development. He will oversee initiatives to enhance federal government applications, increase government awareness of the company’s products and foster business with the company’s partners.

Latham, who has worked at Thrane & Thrane for three years, previously spent eight years as director of business development at General Dynamics.

Ron Lockerby will assume the new role of director of business application development, focusing on land, mobile and maritime applications in new and existing markets. Lockerby had been the director of maritime products and has also worked at Thrane & Thrane for three years. Previously, he was a programs manager at Conley and Associates, where he was responsible for managing command, control, communications, computers, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance programs for the Defense Department.

Amy Belmaggio, former account manager, has been promoted to director of airtime services and will be responsible for selling airtime services in new markets. She joined Thrane & Thrane in 2005 and previously was a government accounts manager and government data account executive at Nextel Communications.

The company also hired two account managers: Lauri Paul, former director of sales at Boatracs, and Hillary Munsch, former account manager at Bowman Systems.

Thrane & Thrane is based in Virginia Beach, Va.