Leadership

Our leadership team

Wisconsin pride runs deep in our office. Most of us grew up and went to school here, and we are proud of the telecom legacy we’ve built for our home state through decades of dependability, adaptability and hard work.

Erik CaPaul

CEO

Erik is a Wisconsin native with two BAs and a Juris-Doctorate from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

With more than 20 years of experience in the telecommunications industry, comes to Access Wisconsin with a strong management record for major players like AT&T and TDS.

Sue Englund

Director of Finance

Another Wisconsin native, Sue obtained both a Bachelor’s degree in Accounting and a Master’s degree in Business from Lakeland College.

Sue joined Access Wisconsin in 2001 after gaining comprehensive accounting experience in both the medical and manufacturing industries.

Steve Schollmeyer

Director of Network Services

Steve provided engineering support on the State of Wisconsin Badgernet Network for over 20 years.

Before joining Access Wisconsin he worked on government, educational, medical and commercial accounts for both AT&T and Presidio.

Our members

This extraordinarily talented and dedicated group of more than 25 independent service providers have invested in us and we, in turn, have been investing in our communities.

Solarus

Doug Wenzlaff, President

Douglas J. Wenzlaff is the President of Solarus. He started employment at Solarus in 1983, spending time in the Accounting, Central Office, and Plant Departments before becoming CEO and then President. He was responsible for technical implementation of the Internet deployment in 1995 and led the implementation of digital video service by his company in 1999.

He graduated from the University of Wisconsin – Whitewater with a degree in Business Administration, and also has a Master of Business Administration Degree from the University of Wisconsin – Oshkosh.

Doug is a past President of the Wisconsin State Telecommunications Association and the Wisconsin Locally Owned Telephone Association. He serves on the board of Access Wisconsin, and the Wisconsin State Telecommunications Foundation.

Doug is active locally in the Wisconsin Rapids Rotary club, and serves on the United Way board.

Lakeland Communications Group, LLC

John Klatt, President and CEO
John Klatt began working for Amery Telecom in 1981 as a summer employee while attending college where he obtained a Bachelor of Science degree in general business administration from the University of Wisconsin-Stout in 1984. After returning to Amery Telecom John was later hired as General Manager of Cochrane Telephone Cooperative. In 1989 John was hired as General Manager of Luck Telephone Company in Luck, Wisconsin. In 1995 Luck Telephone Company and five local Independent Telephone companies purchased a regional cable television company, and John managed that initiative and served as President of the resulting company, Vision Communications, LLC. Motivated by the Telecommunications Rewrite Act of 1996 and taking effect in 1997, Luck Telephone Company and Milltown Mutual Telephone Company merged to form Lakeland Communications, Inc. John was promoted to the Board and became President of the Board of Directors and the CEO of the corporation. John currently serves in those capacities. In 2007 John was awarded the NTCA Life Achievement Manager Award. John served as a Wisconsin State Telephone Association (WSTA) Board member (1994-2000) and as President in 2000. He was recently elected to the WSTA’s Hall of Fame in 2013. John also is a past Board member and served as President of Wisconsin Locally Owned Telephone Association in 2011. He is an RSA 1 Cellular Partnership-Board Member, Access Wisconsin-Board Member. Also, is Vice President and a Board member of Polk County Economic Development Corporation. He has also served on St. Dominic’s Parish Council and as Chairman. He currently is a Trustee of St. Dominic’s Parish and a member of Knights of Columbus.

Cellcom and Nsight Telservices

Rick Brooks, Chief Technical Officer & Vice President – Engineering

Rick Brooks serves as Nsight’s chief technology officer. In this role Rick is charged with the design and engineering of Nsight’s network, devices, software development, IT and security as well as overseeing construction, field operations, tower operations and the company’s network operation center.

Rick joined the Nsight family of companies in 2009 as a senior network transmission engineer and was promoted to network transmission manager in 2010 and senior network transmission manager in 2013. He became director of transport and routed networks in 2014, assuming responsibility of the engineering aspects of the network. In 2019 Rick was promoted to senior director of engineering, overseeing RF engineering, network transport and network engineering. In this role, Rick’s teams focused building a network with virtually unlimited capacity and maximizing network performance to meet the growing data needs of our customers and preparing our network for 5G.

Rick graduated from Milwaukee School of Engineering with a B.S. degree in electrical engineering and has been in the telecom industry since 2000.

Cirrinity

Scott Nyman, CEO

Scott Nyman is the CEO at Cirrinity formerly Wittenberg Telephone Company North Central Wisconsin. Scott is responsible for managing all aspects of operations and significant growth initiatives across three Counties. Prior to joining Cirrinity Scott served in progressing roles for more than 20 years beginning at a small Telephone Company in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan and most recently Network Manager at Solarus in Wisconsin. Scott serves on the Wisconsin State Telephone Association(WSTA) Board of directors as well as taking on the role as WSTA president in 2023. He also serves on several local economic and chamber of commerce committees.

Scott has a degree in Business as well as a veteran of the US nuclear Submarine Service. He and his wife Kirsten have two daughters, and reside in the Wittenberg area with their Silver Labrador Belle.

TDS Telecommunications, LLC

Ken Paker, SVP of Information and Network Technologies and CTO

Ken was named CTO in 2014 and appointed SVP of Information and Network Technologies in 2018. He  has been with the company since in 1996.

Ken has responsibility for technical direction of the company’s network and IT evolution. He oversees  the delivery of software and infrastructure projects across diverse, state-of-the-art network  technologies, as well as the company’s mission-critical IT applications and services. He also directs the  planning, engineering, and building of TDS’ networks to ensure customers have access to the most  reliable internet, phone and TV services.

Outside of work, Ken enjoys running and traveling. In fact, he’s been to all 50 states with his wife and  daughters. He is a self-described lifelong learner and recently completed a Masters in Data Science at the  University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh. In addition, Ken holds a Bachelor of Science in Computer Science and  Biology from Purdue University, a Master of Science in Computer Science from the University of  Southern California, and a Master of Business Administration from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Ken has been featured in numerous articles, including Enterprise Networking and ISE magazine.