Tag Archives: West Tennessee

Regions Bank Enhances Commitment to Small Business; Taps Veteran Banker Joe DiNicolantonio to Lead B

By Business Wirevia The Motley Fool

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Regions Bank Enhances Commitment to Small Business; Taps Veteran Banker Joe DiNicolantonio to Lead Business and Community Banking Line of Business

BIRMINGHAM, Ala.–(BUSINESS WIRE)– Regions Bank has created a new Business and Community Banking line of business led by veteran banker Joe DiNicolantonio. The new division reports directly to John Owen, head of business lines and is dedicated to providing a full array of banking, lending, and advisory services to businesses with up to $20 million in sales.

Joe DiNicolantonio, head of Business and Community Banking, Regions Bank (Photo: Business Wire)

“Small businesses have unique challenges and rely on their bank to help them manage and grow their companies,” said Owen. “Joe brings a deep knowledge of both our community markets and small business capabilities to his new role and I’m excited that he will lead our efforts to serve more small businesses.”

Previously Regions managed business and community banking, including small business, as part of the company’s business services group. Establishing the Business and Community Banking division will allow Regions to increase its historically strong focus on serving small business customers through both branch and relationship-managed channels. John Asbury, head of Business Services, will now focus exclusively on Regions’ Commercial Banking, Treasury Management, Real Estate Banking, Business Capital, Specialized Industries and Capital Markets businesses and will continue to report to Owen.

DiNicolantonio joined Regions Bank in 1998 and has held a number of leadership roles in the retail and small business banking arena. Most recently he served as West Tennessee area president with oversight for the bank’s retail, commercial, middle market and small business banking activities throughout Memphis, Tenn. and surrounding communities. Prior to this, he held a number of retail and small business banking leadership roles in the bank’s Florida market. DiNicolantonio earned a bachelor’s degree in Business Administration and Finance from the University of Florida at Gainesville and a master’s degree in Business Administration from the University of South Florida at Tampa.

David May, who most recently served as West Tennessee Commercial Banking executive, will succeed Joe DiNicolantonio as West Tennessee area president. May joined Regions in 1992.

Lynetta Steed has been named director of Government and Institutional Banking for the East Region and will report to East Regional President Brett Couch. Steed joined Regions in 1992 and has provided leadership to the Business and Community Banking team since 2011.

About Regions …read more

Source: FULL ARTICLE at DailyFinance

Ritter Communications Expands Regional Fiber Network with Ciena Packet Networking and Coherent Optic

By Business Wirevia The Motley Fool

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Ritter Communications Expands Regional Fiber Network with Ciena Packet Networking and Coherent Optical Solutions

Arkansas-based service provider to offer high-speed, low-latency communications and business services; support mobile backhaul requirements for Tier 1 mobile operators

HANOVER, Md.–(BUSINESS WIRE)– Ciena® Corporation (NAS: CIEN) , the network specialist, today announced that Ritter Communications, an Arkansas-based communications provider, has deployed Ciena’s packet networking and converged packet optical technologies throughout its regional fiber optic network that serves over 25,000 Internet subscribers in Arkansas and west Tennessee. With this powerful combination of packet networking and converged packet optical solutions, the expanded network will provide businesses, community anchors and residents in previously underserved locations with advanced Ethernet service delivery and a cost-effective means to transport high-speed data services while also providing carriers with cellular backhaul and business services.

Key Facts:

  • Ritter is a fifth-generation family business founded in 1886. Today, through a modern, intelligent infrastructure, Ritter owns and operates two rural local exchange carriers (RLECs) in northeast and north central Arkansas, a competitive local exchange carrier (CLEC) and a fiber optic network in Jonesboro, Arkansas. In December 2012, Ritter completed its purchase of Millington Telephone Company, Inc. and Millington CATV, Inc. which represents approximately 20,000 business and residential customers in parts of Shelby, Tipton, Haywood and Fayette counties in West Tennessee.
  • Ciena’s packet networking solutions, including its 5150 Service Aggregation Switch and 3930 Service Delivery Switch, provide Ritter with increased scalability and protection of services needed to meet their growing end-user demands. The platforms support leading Operations, Administration, and Maintenance (OAM) standards, and provide Service Level Agreement (SLA) insights allowing Ritter to ensure more accurate service management and fault isolation across a greater number of services.
  • Ritter is also leveraging Ciena’s 6500 Packet-Optical Platform equipped with WaveLogic Coherent Optical Processors, a robust solution that will increase capacity and support the mobile backhaul demands of two Tier 1 U.S. wireless carriers and their migration to 4G services. The 6500 allows Ritter to easily scale capacity and program its network to deliver 10G and 40G wavelength services today, with the ability to scale to 100G in the future.
  • Ritter will also leverage packet networking capabilities recently …read more
    Source: FULL ARTICLE at DailyFinance

Feds seek death penalty in Tenn. postal shootings

Federal prosecutors have decided to pursue the death penalty against a former prison guard charged with killing two West Tennessee postal workers.

U.S. Attorney Edward Stanton told a judge about the decision at a hearing in Memphis on Friday for suspect Chastain Montgomery.

Montgomery has pleaded not guilty to fatally shooting Paula Robinson and Judy Spray while robbing the Henning post office with his son in October 2010.

Prosecutors say the robbery netted only $63. The younger Montgomery was killed in a shootout with police in February 2011.

Defense attorneys are challenging a confession Chastain Montgomery gave authorities after he was arrested at the scene of his son’s death.

…read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Fox US News