CTC Columbia Telecommunication Corporation: Management

Joanne Hovis is President of Columbia Telecommunications Corporation. Ms. Hovis is an attorney with a background in communications and commercial litigation. At CTC, she leads the company's work for non-profit agencies and the Federal Government. She also oversees CTC's educational offerings and public interest training programs. Ms. Hovis has served as co-author of extensive white papers on communications topics for government agencies such as the Internal Revenue Service, and non-profit organizations such as the Center for Internet and Society at Stanford Law School, the William Penn Foundation, the Center for Digital Democracy, and the American Civil Liberties Union.

Ms. Hovis is a recognized authority on municipal and community broadband topics--and on the evolving role of government in the provision of communications services to the public. She leads the CTC team that advises the City and County of San Francisco regarding fiber-to-the-premise networking and served as lead author of CTC's pathbreaking fiber report for San Francisco. She has advised numerous local governments and non-profits regarding community networking, including Tucson, AZ; Carroll County, MD; and the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments.

Ms. Hovis received her Juris Doctor, with honors, from the University of Chicago Law School in 1994. She received her B.A., with distinction, in Political Science and Hebrew & Semitic Studies from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1990. She is a member of the bars of the State of Illinois and the District of Columbia.

Ms. Hovis also serves on the Board of Directors of NATOA, the National Association of Telecommunications Officers and Advisors, the national association that represents local governments and promotes community interests in communications matters.

Andrew Afflerbach specializes in system-level planning, design, and implementation of wide-area and local-area telecommunications networks. His expertise includes emerging technologies and state-of-the-art technological applications. As Director of Engineering, he oversees all engineering work performed by Columbia Telecommunications.

Dr. Afflerbach has assisted numerous local governments and non-profit institutions with technological projects – ranging from fiber-optic to wireless communications networks; from educational to homeland security applications; from cable system performance evaluation to development of local emergency override capabilities; and from negotiations with the telecommunications industry to technical briefing of Commissioners and staff of the Federal Communications Commission.

Dr. Afflerbach’s current clients include the District of Columbia; Arlington, Fairfax, Loudoun, and Prince William Counties, VA; Montgomery, Anne Arundel, Howard, Carroll, and Prince George’s Counties, MD; the Cities of Alexandria, Fairfax, and Vienna, VA; King County (Seattle), WA; Scarsdale and Rye, NY; Newark and Atlantic City, NJ; Northbrook and Skokie, IL; Tucson and Mesa, AZ; Cleveland and Cincinnati, OH; and San Francisco, CA.

Dr. Afflerbach has provided technical advice to numerous non-profits, associations, and agencies as diverse as the Center for Internet and Society at Stanford Law School; the Internal Revenue Service, the Alliance for Community Media, the William Penn Foundation, the Center for Digital Democracy, and the FCC’s Local and State Government Advisory Board (LSGAC). He has developed curricula and written studies for a wide variety of organizations, including the University of Maryland, American Civil Liberties Union, the United States Department of Transportation, and the Alliance of Local Organizations Against Preemption (ALOAP). He has taught courses and delivered seminars regarding communications for numerous educational and government institutions.

Dr. Afflerbach received his Ph.D. in astronomy from the University of Wisconsin—Madison in 1996. He received his Bachelor of Arts in physics from Swarthmore College in 1991. He was elected to the science and engineering honor society, Sigma Xi , in 1990. He is a licensed Professional Engineer in the Commonwealth of Virginia.