Our Team
Mr. Mark Lutkowitz
Principal
Mark has over 35 years of experience in the telecommunications and data communications market, focusing extensively in the fiber optics space.
He is considered one of the most objective, no-nonsense demand-side analysts in the sector. Mark was part of a very small number of people in the industry to express caution during the days of the 1999-2001 bubble, when inexplicably, historically conservative telephone companies were being treated by the financial community as if they were dot-com entities. As the industry enters another challenging time as a result of the Covid-19 virus, along with the maturation of the marketplace, he is stepping up again to help guide the industry in recommending practical strategies. One of Mark’s biggest strengths is his numerous long-term relationships with webscale operators, incumbent service providers and other major customers.
Dr. Alka Swanson
Principal
Dr. Alka Swanson has been in the optics and semiconductor industries for over 25 years, starting her career as a Member of Technical Staff at AT&T Bell Laboratories, Murray Hill, NJ.
Alka left Bell Laboratories in 1996 to enter the business world. She became VP of Sales and Marketing at EPITAXX, a detector company and grew sales from $20M to over $200M by starting new product lines. EPITAXX was eventually acquired by JDS Uniphase in 1999. Since then she has had several executive roles such as a General Manager of a $200M group at JDS Uniphase, NJ; COO/CFO of Princeton Lightwave, NJ; and CEO of COGO Optronics, a German and US company. Previous to Kelvin Nanotechnology, Alka was a director of Princeton Lightwave (PLI), a sensor company.
Donald Clarke
Contributing Network Operator Consultant
Don initially enjoyed a varied career in R&D at BT Labs in the UK, where he led fiber, DSL and network evolution developments . He was technical lead on several of BT’s next-gen, access technical trials.
Don co-founded and chaired the FSAN DSL Working Group, which brokered the key international agreements on VDSL standards and developed the methodology that underpins DSL deployments worldwide — the “FSAN Noise Combination Method.” Don and his team at BT were pioneers in work on measuring high-frequency cross-talk in the live UK telephony network, the first international team to do so.
Moving to the US, Don led the collaborative cable operator effort to develop an access network virtualization strategy for the global cable industry. In his spare time, he co-founded and ran a video display technology manufacturing company — its products were sold in over 45 countries.
Don has been awarded a number of patents relating to passive optical networks and NFV security. Speaking of virtualization, he played an instrumental role in in pushing for cloud networking as the future direction of telecom infrastructure.
Joseph A. Hoffman
Contributing Optics Consultant
Joe is an electrical engineer with an MBA and has had a lifelong commitment to telecommunications covering products up and down the food chain. He is well-known internationally as a top analyst in the ascending 5G space, regarding economics, deployments, and technologies.
After a few years of developing his component engineering chops, Joe moved to IBM Federal Systems, where he excelled in the circuit and chip design for space-based products. He delivered patented and trade-secret innovations there.
Joe’s next step was at Motorola involving work on cellular and space-based networks. At the firm, he progressed to system engineering, as well as a career pivot into product management, focusing on strategic marketing.
Joe also provided innovations at both Lockheed-Marin and Nokia. He has built a solid reputation for providing winning product and market strategies in both published research and in consulting to high-level executives.
Samuel Greenholtz
Contributing Consultant at-Large
Sam worked for Verizon for 29 years and during most of that time, he was a key manager, deeply involved in the evaluation and selection of optical networking gear. Afterwards he worked at CIR for three years, and then co-founded market research firm, Telecom Pragmatics, staying there for over a decade.
During his time as full-time analyst, Sam became one of the top consultants to GLG in the telecommunications space. With his industry knowledge, he was considered indispensable to investment firms around the world.
While remaining a telecom consultant, Sam is currently Executive Director of the Literacy Council of Carroll County. He is also a member of the Maryland State Property Tax Assessment Appeals Board, where he acts a judge to resolve differences between land owners and the state’s assessors. In addition, Sam is a member of the Carroll County Educational Committee reporting to the county commissioners.
