Robert J. Sama, President & CEO

Rob co-founded the company in September 2001 and leads the company's strategy and business development. Prior to Closer, he served as a senior consultant with environments.com, a business strategy firm located in New York City that advised Internet-related and start-up technology companies. In that role, Rob developed technology and financial strategies for a variety of clients in the dot-com, software and wireless communications business sectors.

He was the CFO of CommUnique Wireless, a digital packet radio routing company located near Sacramento, California, was a senior manager at LoJack Corporation and began his career at KPMG. Rob holds a MS degree from Bentley College and an AB degree in Philosophy from the University of Chicago.

Christopher M. LaPre, Chief Technology Officer

Chris co-founded the company in September 2001 and leads the company�s technology and intellectual property development and strategy. Chris spent eight years as a chief scientist and product manager for BBN Technologies in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where he developed and marketed technology that routes email based on its content. He developed industry-leading speech recognition technologies for commercial and governmental customers. Chris invented patented technology related to Optical Character Recognition and statistical models, which remain in use today.

To date, Chris has contributed to ten publications and was an instrumental contributor to five patents and patent applications. Chris holds a MS in Electrical Engineering and BS degree in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from Tufts University.

Richard C. McCann, Chief Financial Officer

Rich joined the Company in January, 2002. He has sixteen years of professional accounting experience with two international accounting firms, KPMG and Coopers & Lybrand (now known as PricewaterhouseCoopers), of which nine years were dedicated to advising clients with deal-oriented private equity and strategic (M&A) transactions ranging from $3.0 million to $6.0 billion. Prior to joining Closer, Rich was selected and served in KPMG's National Office in New York City.

Rich has extensive experience with development-stage enterprises and complex accounting and SEC reporting issues related to business combinations, joint ventures, private equity and venture capital investments, debt and equity offerings (IPOs), and stock-based compensation arrangements. Rich is a Certified Public Accountant (CPA) in Massachusetts, is a member of the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA) and holds a BSBA degree in Accounting from Suffolk University.

Neil R. Gordon

Neil R. Gordon is an advisor to CloserCommunications.

Julius Levin

Julius Levin is an advisor to CloserCommunications.