Profile: Arunas Chesonis

▤ Summary

He was one of a small group of entrepreneurs who launched a firm early as the U.S. telecommunications industry took off in the 1990s and was still standing a decade later. In 1997, when Chesonis and fellow Rochester Telephone Corp. alumnus Richard Ottalagana first mapped out plans to start a competitive local exchange carrier, CLECs were hot. After the superheated U.S. telecom market’s bubble burst in 2001, most CLECs went under or were swallowed by larger firms. The $440 million acquisition filled in Paetec’s eastern and western U.S. networks, for the first time giving it a national footprint. Chesonis, who once said that he hoped to retire early and teach, moved into a new entrepreneurial venture, joining Sweetwater Energy Inc. as CEO.

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