Birch Communications, Inc., a leading provider of communications, network and cloud services to small, mid-sized, enterprise and wholesale businesses across North America, announced the appointment of Jim O'Brien as its new Executive Vice President and Chief Operations Officer, which became effective May 16, 2016.

"I am pleased to appoint a new executive vice president and chief operations officer, Jim O'Brien. I have worked with Jim in the past, and he is an experienced leader and is seasoned in infrastructure, engineering, operations, IT, and customer care," said Tony Tomae, President and CEO of Birch. "Our operational decisions surrounding systems, processes and technology will continue to put the customer experience first as we expand organically, and Jim's skill set is ideally suited to enhance our company's operational excellence and the overall customer experience."

O'Brien is a 20+ year communications operations executive and has served in several executive positions at notable competitive carriers including Deltacom –now EarthLink– and ICG Communications. O'Brien comes to Birch from Rise Broadband where he most recently served as Senior Vice President of Customer Operations and led all Network and Field Operations, Customer Care, Contact Center and Technical Support groups.

"I am thrilled to be joining Birch at this time in its incredible 20-year history. Birch's significant investments in network and product expansions in Metro-Fiber, cloud services and unified communications allow for greater opportunities to streamline operations while enhancing our customer's experience," said O'Brien, newly appointed EVP and COO of Birch.

O'Brien will be based at the Atlanta Operations Center, and plans to relocate to the Atlanta area.