Michael R. Smith began his career in military electronics while in the Air Force, worked as a consultant to geophysical firms in the leasing of land, was the sole founder of a private pay telephone company, Cointel, (1986), was the sole founder of Operator Service Company (OSC), a telecommunication and teleservices firm (1987), and was the sole founder of Merchant Clearing House (MCH), a billing company clearinghouse founded in 2004.
In April 2000, Mr. Smith sold OSC to Billing Concepts, Inc. (a public company) and was made President of the merged firm. After Billing Concepts, Inc. was sold in November 2000 to Platinum Equity, Inc., an $8 billion private equity firm, he was promoted to the senior Platinum executive responsible for managing Billing Concepts, and three other telecommunication and billing firms which included OSC, and Matrix Business Technologies, a Long Distance Provider. The presidents of these four firms reported to Mr. Smith.
After the sale of Billing Concepts, Inc. in 2004 by Platinum Equity to another private firm, Mr. Smith left Platinum Equity and started his current firm Merchant Clearing House. In 2008, Mr. Smith successfully purchased Inmate Calling Solutions, LLC (ICS) from a bankruptcy court in California, a subsidiary of a California bankrupt company, The Billing Resource, LLC. (TBR). Mr. Smith is the founder of Texas ICS Holding, LLC, dba/Michael R. Smith and Group, LLC, the parent of ICS. Mr. Smith is the sole Managing Director of Inmate Calling Solutions, LLC. His 28 years of technical, managerial, and entrepreneurial experience make him extremely qualified to evaluate and determine value for a telecommunication company such as Inmate Calling Solutions, LLC (ICS) and operate it in a successful and profitable manner as its owner.
J. Kirk Smith graduated from Texas Tech University with a BBA in Business (1973) and from the University of Denver (1981) with a MBA Finance.
Mr. Smith started his career as an Officer in the US Air Force, with his final assignment as the Quality Manger for the F100 Engine, F-15 System Program Office. Mr. Smith worked for several defense and government contractors after his Air Force career, such as Texas Instruments, Lockheed Martin, Gulf Oil and Raytheon (previously E-Systems). In his final position, he was the Vice President, Finance for the Garland division of Raytheon. In this position he had over 900 employees reporting to him in the fields of Legal, Contracts, Pricing, Finance, Accounting, Purchasing, MIS, and Facilities.
In 1991, Mr. Smith joined his brother, Mike Smith, as a part owner of Operator Service Company (OSC) in Lubbock, Texas employed as the President and CFO. OSC provided telecommunications and call center services to the cellular and telecom industries. OSC was purchased by Billing Concepts, Inc. (a public company) in April 2000 and Mr. Smith was made Senior Vice President and Chief Operating Officer of OSC. Billing Concepts, Inc. (including OSC) was sold in November 2000 to Platinum Equity, Inc., an $8 billion private equity firm; Mr. Smith was promoted to President and CEO of OSC.
Mr. Smith left OSC in November of 2004, and was hired by Value Added Communications, Inc. (VAC), an inmate telecom provider, as CFO in 2005. Later that year, Mr. Smith became a consultant to VAC Holdings, Inc., parent of VAC.
Mr. Smith is also a consultant to other small companies, providing CEO counsel and financial and strategic planning advice.
Mr. Smith became an employee of Texas ICS Holding, LLC in January 2009 and is the Vice President and Secretary for both Texas ICS Holding, LLC and for Inmate Calling Solutions, LLC (ICS). Mr. Smith is also an owner of Texas ICS Holding, LLC, the parent of ICS.
Brendan Philbin, Vice President Operations brings more than 16 years of experience in the telecommunications industry, delivering strategic vision, market and product strategy, telephony innovation, and program and project management to the ICSolutions team. Previous to ICSolutions, he served as Chief Operating Officer to Integretel Incorporated since 1996, overseeing all aspects of service delivery including: billing and collection, revenue assurance, customer service, quality control, and data processing functions.
Earlier in his career, Philbin served as Vice President of Operations for Value Added Communications (VAC) and was responsible for the design of fraud control processes that were successfully deployed in state-wide correctional systems and several county inmate facilities across the country.
Philbin graduated with honors from Ballinafad College in Southern Ireland.
Phil Apanovitch, Vice President of Sales and Marketing brings 25 years of telecommunications leadership and management experience to ICSolutions. He is responsible for overall corporate marketing and customer development. Under his leadership, ICSolutions has already secured relationships with many industry leaders.
Previous to joining ICSolutions, Apanovitch held senior executive marketing positions with OPUS TELECOM, Value Added Communications (VAC), and TELEQUIP Labs where he was responsible for marketing inmate call processing systems to county and state correctional facilities. Earlier in his career, Apanovitch served as divisional manager for Sprint where he managed 150 sales executives in 7 cities, and was responsible for implementing Sprint’s first centralized telemarketing organization based in Detroit, MI.
Apanovitch obtained a Bachelors of Science in marketing from Central Connecticut University in New Britain, CT.
John Goetsch, Vice President Technology brings more than 20 years of experience as a technology professional adept at planning, developing, and implementing applications to address complex business and telecommunications challenges. John has a proven track record of building and leading teams in the creation of cutting edge controls technology in telecommunications and industrial domains with numerous patents awarded.
From 1997 - 2000, John served as Chief Technologies to Opus Telecom where he was a lead architect of the system design that was successfully deployed in correctional systems across the country.
Goetsch graduated with Honors from Rhodes University with a B.Sc in Computer Science.
Ken Dawson, Vice President Contracts & Regulatory, has over 20 years of executive management experience in the telecommunications industry and currently oversees all facets of the company's contracting and compliance matters. Previous to ICSolutions, he co-founded several billing service companies establishing specialized, independent clearinghouses to address broad market segments including operator services, e-commerce and information and entertainment. Dawson applied that experience to address the significant fraud problems of the inmate correctional industry helping to pioneer technological solutions that significantly improve the revenue/cost relationship.
Dawson previously served as a senior management consultant to a $5 billion financial services, construction materials and development conglomerate, where he was responsible for designing and implementing business solutions to support a wide range of applications. He also ran his own successful consulting firm, based on his earlier experience as a software engineer, where customers included the nation's fifth largest telecommunications carrier.