Steven Gelmis
Born on Houston's Telephone Road during the month of the Sputnik launch, and raised down the block from New York Telephone's East 79th St Central Office in Manhattan, Steve began investigating the inner workings of the Bell telephone system from a hobbyist's and hacker's perspective at age 14. During high school and college he built and installed several telephone systems from scratch for parents of friends. One of these remains in use to this day. He also developed several devices and methods to access or bypass internal billing and routing functions of the public telephone network, thus demonstrating an early interest and ability in both business and engineering.
In 1980, Steve began doing telecom projects for social service not-for-profit organizations on both a paid and volunteer basis - setting aside use of his college training in solar engineering and architecture. By 1984 the volume and scope of these projects culminated in the founding of Public Interest Telecommunications Inc. (PITI) as a PBX sales and service company, and a few years later, Public Interest Network Services Inc. (PINS) as a licensed local and long distance carrier. He is now Chairman of the Board of both companies.
Steve is an avid sailor and traveler, and lives canal-side in a unique self-designed home with his wife, Magdalena, and daughter in the Carroll Gardens section of Brooklyn.
David Birnbaum
David's experience with data and voice networking began in 1988, when he worked at New Mexico State University, an original ARPANET participant. Trained as a chemist, David soon discovered that he preferred spending time in the University Computer Center rather than in the Chemistry Lab. Arriving in New York City in 1990, David spent seven years in senior technical positions for several Wall Street firms, including Lehman Brothers, Morgan Stanley, and ING Barings Bank as architect of their UNIX-based software distribution systems and Cisco networking solutions.
He left Wall Street in 1996 to start his own company, Chelsea Networks, specializing in software development, technical services, and networking operations. Chelsea Networks set up its technical operations within Public Interest's network facility, giving David and Steve a chance to get to know each other. Over time, they developed an appreciation for each other's technical skills and began to think about doing business together. Along the way Chelsea Networks developed the core billing, tax compliance, customer database, and network monitoring software used by Public Interest today.
In 2002, David joined Steve as his partner to develop and deploy next-generation telephone and data services to the Public Interest customer base and was named President and CEO in 2005. David is an accomplished chef and devoted Ultimate Frisbee league player. He and his wife, Jennifer, and two children live in a Chelsea loft.
Michael Lavelle
Mike's phone career began in 1972 when he joined the old Bell System as a telephone operator while earning his bachelor degree at Villanova University. For the following thirteen years he held various positions with Bell and AT&T in customer service, sales engineering, training and management, specializing in delivering complex telecommunications systems to large business clients.
After the break up of the Bell System and a brief stint at Wang Laboratories, Mike came to New York to serve as the general manager of a not for profit telecommunications collective founded with seed investments from several foundations interested in making technology more accessible to their grantees. Thousands of organizations joined to take advantage of collective purchasing power and the technical expertise the staff provided in navigating the new competitive telecommunications landscape.
It was then that Mike started collaborating with Steve Gelmis on various projects for their joint clientele. In 1992, Mike joined Public Interest, providing support to PINS' network customers and expanding the client base He currently heads up network installations, client billing systems and is responsible for overall customer service.
Mike lives in the Tudor City neighborhood of Manhattan. and truly loves life in New York City, where he can often be seen walking Max to work or to the dog run, or visiting his grandson William in Brooklyn.