Alliance Group Directors

In 2017, Mark Dzwonczyk completed a 6+ year stint as the CEO of Nicholville Telephone Company, whose subsidiary, Slic Network Solutions, is deploying broadband Internet access to residences and businesses throughout northern New York with a fiber-to-the-premise network. Mark remains on the Board.  He was recruited to the CEO position to turn-around this 110 year local telephone from financial distress to profitability.  His leadership drove Nicholville from a small, dated rural telephone company into a leading "North Country" business with engaged employees and broadband technology unrivaled in the nation, both fueled by a dramatic increase in subscribers and revenue.  His work has been highlighted as Managing in Adversity Case Study at MIT's Sloan School of Management.

Born in upstate New York and raised in the Boston area, Dzwonczyk has been building or re-building businesses for the past 20 years. He spent the first 10 years of his career as an engineer at Draper Laboratory in Cambridge, Massachusetts. He then built his first start-up the old fashioned way -- in a garage and bootstrapped on customer revenue. He grew it to be an international supplier of award-winning voice-over-IP products with design centers in California, complemented by engineering offices in China and contract manufacturing partners in Singapore and Malaysia. In 2005, the company, Sigpro, was acquired by Guest-Tek, which at the time was the world’s largest provider of broadband to the hotel industry.  After two other telecom restarts, including one in Austin, Texas, Dzwonczyk recognized the desperate market need for rural broadband solutions and formed Adirondack Broadband as a consulting company and small rural Internet Service Provider.  

Dzwonczyk graduated from Tufts University with a B.S.E.E. summa cum laude in electrical engineering and a master of science in aeronautical engineering from MIT. He also studied information systems at Stanford University, but was pulled away by entrepreneurial passions.   He remains active in rural New York endeavors, including higher education, public radio, and a commitment to change the economic fabric of the region by developing its entrepreneurial ecosystem.