Board of Directors

Tony C. Banks, Chairman of the Board
Raymond Hexamer, Board Member
Jeffrey A. Eisenach, Ph.D., Board Member
C.H. “Bud” Albright, J.D., Board Member
Dr. James C. Miller, Ph.D., Board Member
Peter M. Hayes, Board Member
John P. Yeros, Chief Executive Officer and Board Member

Tony C. Banks, Chairman of the Board

Mr. Banks is Vice-President, Product & Business Development for FirstEnergy Solutions, the unregulated affiliate of FirstEnergy Corporation. In this position, he is responsible for electric marketing, product development, channel strategies, and new business development for FirstEnergy Solutions. He joined FirstEnergy in 2004 as director of Marketing of FirstEnergy Solutions, the competitive subsidiary of FirstEnergy Corp., and was subsequently promoted to VP of FirstEnergy Solutions, where he was responsible for unregulated sales of electricity and energy-related products and services to end-use customers. Prior to his current position, Mr. Banks was the Vice-President of Business Development & Performance Management at FirstEnergy Corporation where he was responsible for all M&A, strategy/planning and business process improvement initiatives.

Prior to joining FirstEnergy, Mr. Banks was a consultant to utilities, energy service companies and energy technology firms. From 2000 through 2002, he was President of RAI Ventures, Inc. and Chairman of the Board of Optiron Corporation, which was an energy technology subsidiary of Atlas America. From 1998 through 2000, he served as CEO and President of Atlas America, an oil & natural gas producer and organizer of public and private limited partnerships. He began his career with Consolidated Natural Gas Company, now Dominion Resources, Inc., where he held various fast track positions, including treasurer and director of Strategic Marketing Services for the company’s unregulated subsidiary.

Mr. Banks is a board member of the President’s Council Foundation of Northeast Ohio, the Akron Urban League and publicly traded Atlas Pipeline Partners (NYSE: APL). He is also a member of the Executive Leadership Council of Alexandria, Virginia and holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Accounting/Computers from Point Park College.

Raymond Hexamer, Board Member

Mr. Hexamer has been the CEO of First Communications, a telecommunications company providing voice and internet services for businesses since 2005.  In that time span, the company revenues grew by $100 million. The company is headquartered in Akron, Ohio and has offices in Chicago, Detroit, Columbus and Pittsburgh.

Mr. Hexamer and his team has generated over $200 million in public and bank funding and has completed nine acquisitions in four years. In addition, he helped guide and take the company public on the AIM exchange in London in July of 2007.

Previous to his work at First Communications, Mr. Hexamer was the CEO and investor of SkyLan Wireless, a start up Internet Company that his investors eventually merged into First Communications.

Mr. Hexamer spent 23 years in the radio industry with WHBC AM & FM in Canton, Ohio.  He started his career there as a part time temporary announcer and ended there in 2004 as the President of the company.  During that time he grew revenues, ratings and earnings and successfully completed a sale for the shareholders to Next Media in July of 2002 for $43.5 million.  He was named one of the top ten presidents and general managers three times by the Radio Ink Magazine.

Mr. Hexamer has had various leadership roles in the community and business organizations such as the 2001 General Chairman of The Pro Football Hall of Fame Festival, as well as, past president positions with the Ohio Association of Broadcasters, Rotary Club of Canton and the National Chairman of the Radio Advertising Bureau Sales Advisory Committee.

Mr. Hexamer's formal academic background includes a Bachelor of Arts degree in Business Administration from the University of Akron.

Jeffrey A. Eisenach, Ph.D., Board Member

Dr. Eisenach is Chairman of Empiris and an Adjunct Professor at George Mason University Law School. He has more than 25 years experience performing economic analyses of competition, regulatory, and public policy issues, and has served in senior policy positions at the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB). He has also served on the faculties of Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government and Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University.

Dr. Eisenach's practice focuses on economic analysis of competition and consumer protection issues. He has submitted expert reports and testified in litigation matters, as well in regulatory proceedings before the Federal Communications Commission, the Federal Trade Commission, and several state public utility commissions, and he has testified before Congress on multiple occasions.

He is the author or co-author of eight books, including The Digital Economy Fact Book, The Telecom Revolution: An American Opportunity and America's Fiscal Future, Controlling the Federal Deficit in the 1990s. In addition, he has edited or co-edited five books, including: Communications Deregulation and FCC Reform: What Comes Next? Competition, Innovation and the Microsoft Monopoly: Antitrust in the Digital Marketplace. His articles have appeared in scholarly journals as well as in such popular outlets as Forbes, Investors Business Daily, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post and The Washington Times.

In 1993, Dr. Eisenach co-founded The Progress & Freedom Foundation, a non-partisan, non-profit think tank focused on issues affecting the high-tech sector of the economy. As President of the Foundation from 1993 through 2002, he led the Foundation's research on a wide range of issues, including antitrust policy, intellectual property, communications regulation, FDA regulation of pharmaceutical products, and FERC regulation of the electricity sector.

Among his former affiliations, Dr. Eisenach has served as a scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, the Heritage Foundation, and the Hudson Institute; as a consultant to the U.S. Sentencing Commission (on corporate sentencing guidelines); and as a member of the 1980-81 Reagan-Bush Transition Team on the Federal Trade Commission, the 2000-2001 Bush-Cheney Transition Team on the Federal Communications Commission, the Virginia Governor's Commission on E-Communities, and the Virginia Attorney General's Task Force on Identity Theft.

He remains a member of the board of directors of The Progress & Freedom Foundation, and also serves on the Advisory Boards of the Pew Project on the Internet and American Life and the Washington Mutual Investors Fund.

Before joining Empiris, Dr. Eisenach served as Chairman of CapAnalysis, the economic consulting arm of the world's largest antitrust law firm, Howrey LLC. He holds a Ph.D. in economics from the University of Virginia and a B.A. in economics from Claremont McKenna College.

C.H. “Bud” Albright, J.D., Board Member

The Honorable Clarence “Bud” Albright is the immediate-past Under Secretary of the U.S. Department of Energy. In that role, as the third most senior official at DOE, he provided leadership for energy and environment programs, including: energy research and development; demonstration and deployment; environmental cleanup; legacy management and radioactive waste management, all with a total budget of nearly $15 billion. Mr. Albright was appointed by President Bush and was unanimously confirmed by the U.S. Senate.

Prior to joining the Department, Mr. Albright served as Staff Director for the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Energy and Commerce. In that role he worked to address issues facing the country’s telecommunications, energy, environmental, and health industries. Before joining the Committee, Mr. Albright was Vice President of Federal Affairs for Reliant Energy in the Washington, DC office.

Mr. Albright has also served in the government in a variety of capacities, including Deputy Associate Attorney General and Senior Special Assistant to the Assistant Attorney General of the Civil Division at the U.S. Department of Justice, and Deputy General Counsel of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.

Additionally, Mr. Albright served as Associate Counsel on the U.S. Senate Select Committee investigating the Iran-Contra incident. From 1981 through 1986, he also served as an Assistant United States Attorney in the Eastern District of Virginia.

He also served in the private sector as Vice President of Reliant Energy for five years.

A native of Rock Hill, South Carolina, Mr. Albright holds an undergraduate degree in history and political science from Presbyterian College in his home state and a Juris Doctor Degree from George Mason University School of Law in Virginia. Albright, his wife and their two children live in McLean, Virginia.

Dr. James C. Miller, Ph.D., Board Member

The Honorable James C. Miller is a Senior Expert at Empiris LLC and a Senior Advisor at Husch Blackwell Sanders, LLC.

Dr. Miller has broad government, private-sector, and academic experience. Previously, Dr. Miller was Director of the U.S. Office of Management and Budget. As OMB’s Director, he was a member of President Reagan’s cabinet and a member of the National Security Council (1985-1988). Before that he served as Chairman of the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (1981-1985). He currently is a member of the Board of Governors (i.e., board of directors) of the U.S. Postal Service (serving as chairman, 2005-2008), a position to which he was appointed by President G. W. Bush and confirmed by the U.S. Senate in November 2004. He also serves on the boards of directors of four mutual funds and Clean Energy Fuels, Inc.

Dr. Miller is a Distinguished Fellow at both the Center for Study of Public Choice and the Mercatus Center at George Mason University. He is also a Senior Fellow (by courtesy) of the Hoover Institution at Stanford University and is a member of the board of Americans for Prosperity. Dr. Miller has authored more than 100 articles in professional journals; authored, co-authored, or edited nine books; and, testified in a wide variety of litigation and regulatory matters.

Dr. Miller received a B.B. A. in economics from the University of Georgia in 1964, and a Ph.D. in economics from the University of Virginia in 1969.

Peter M. Hayes, Board Member

Peter Hayes is the Manager of Public Affairs for the Salt River Project, a water and power utility in Phoenix, Arizona. Throughout his career, Mr. Hayes has held a number of positions in federal and state government, as well as in the private sector.

Mr. Hayes directed SRP's congressional and federal relations in Washington, D.C. for six years beginning in 1985, before returning to Arizona to assume responsibility for the utility’s federal, state and local government relations.

Prior to joining SRP, Mr. Hayes worked on Capitol Hill in Washington D.C. for the U.S. House of Representatives Minority Leader, John J. Rhodes from Arizona's First Congressional District. Mr. Hayes served as Rhodes’ Legislative Assistant and later ran his successful 1978 and 1980 re-election campaigns. In 1988, he served as campaign manager for Rhodes' Arizona gubernatorial election effort.

During the Reagan administration, Mr. Hayes worked as Special Assistant to the Assistant Secretary for Water and Science at the U.S. Department of Interior. Mr. Hayes then served as Deputy Director of Congressional Liaison in the Office of the Secretary, under both Secretaries William Clark and Donald Hodel.

In 1992, Mr. Hayes served as Chief of Staff to Arizona Governor, Fife Symington.

Mr. Hayes is the father of three sons and is involved in many community activities. He serves on the Board of Trustees of the Arizona Science Center in Phoenix, AZ. He is also on the Board of Directors and Executive Committee for the Greater Phoenix Chamber of Commerce. He is a past member of the Arizona State University Honors College Dean's Advisory Board, the Arizona Chamber of Commerce, and the Arizona Board of Directors of Compass Bank. In 1995, Mr. Hayes was appointed by Governor Jane Hull as a Commissioner of the Arizona Commission on the Arts and served two terms.

Mr. Hayes graduated from Arizona State University in Tempe, Arizona in 1976 with a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science, and completed the program for senior managers in government at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University.