About Us

Swimelar & Willard, LLC is a management consulting firm dedicated to assisting its rural telephony clients in creating enterprise value and sustainable competitive advantage. Our services include Strategic Planning, Pricing & Marketing Strategy, Business Plan Development, Enterprise Valuations, and Mergers & Acquisitions (M&A) Support.

Our Principals have over forty years of combined experience in finance, accounting, marketing, and regulatory support helping telecommunications leaders make strategic decisions. We bring this experience to bear to facilitate the development of custom strategic plans and actionable initiatives for our clients that position them for success in today’s shifting competitive arena.

With offices in Atlanta and Dallas, we are conveniently located to provide timely assistance to clients throughout rural America.

Our People

Michael P. Swimelar, Principal

Michael P. Swimelar is a Principal and founding member of Swimelar & Willard, LLC. He is a leader in the firm’s strategic and financial consulting business which provides strategic and business planning, financial analysis and decision support, pricing and marketing support, financing, valuation and M&A support to local exchange carriers.

Mr. Swimelar has extensive experience in various capacities and projects aimed at creating owner value and sustainable competitive advantage for businesses. His personal philosophy is that while value creation through constantly improving customer insight is the overriding business goal that best meets the needs of all stakeholders, it is the accountable, measurable, and aligned initiatives in effect throughout the organization that really propel a company forward and create immense wealth and satisfaction for its owners, employees, and communities.

Mr. Swimelar is an expert in value creation techniques, cash flow, enterprise and initiative valuation, and M&A processes (targeting, due diligence, valuation, deal structure, and integration) from both the buy and sell side. He has also taught value based management techniques to executives and employees at various companies.

Mr. Swimelar has defended financial results and forecasts with PUC’s in several states and has been the company financial witness on several rate cases. He has implemented financial processes and capital and operating improvement programs at two large ILECS and several smaller businesses. While having full P&L responsibility at a communications company, he implemented initiatives nearly tripling operating profits in less than two years.

Prior to his association with Swimelar & Willard, Mr. Swimelar was recently Senior VP/CFO of Common Knowledge Research services where he helped pioneer profitable online research business models. He has also held senior strategic and financial positions at Citizens Communications and Verizon and was a Manager with the telecommunications consulting practice of Ernst & Young focusing on the needs of rural LECS throughout the United States and Canada.

Mr. Swimelar is a licensed CPA and received his BA in Business with a concentration in Accounting from the University of Washington and his MBA in Corporate Finance from the University of Dallas.

Mark A. Willard, Principal

Mark Willard has spent the past sixteen years in the telecommunications industry, serving in a variety of strategic capacities in marketing and finance for several major U.S. competitors. As a founding member of Swimelar & Willard, LLC, Mr. Willard leads the firm’s strategic planning, pricing, and marketing strategy practice, and supports its financial analysis and valuation initiatives.

Mr. Willard is a recognized expert on pricing strategy and financial business case methodology, having spoken extensively at industry forums throughout the United States and Europe. Prior to founding Swimelar & Willard, LLC, he served for five years at BellSouth as Senior Director, Global Pricing Strategy, where he was responsible for the development of short and long term pricing strategy. In this capacity, he was intimately involved in the development of BellSouth’s residential and business DSL pricing strategy and, more recently, its VOIP strategy.

Prior to BellSouth, from 1996 to 2000, Mr. Willard was Director of Operations Analysis at Citizens Communications where he managed the company’s $240M+ annual capital plan, created and implemented its capital allocation strategy, and developed peer performance metrics for executive management. From 1989 to 1996, He served Sprint Corporation’s Long Distance Division in a variety of pricing and competitive analysis capacities, culminating in the leadership of its residential competitive analysis group.

In addition to his involvement with Swimelar & Willard, LLC, Mr. Willard serves on the board of directors of the Atlanta Victim Assistance Program, a non-profit organization providing advocacy and support services for area women and children victimized by violent crime.

Mr. Willard received a BA in Economics from the University of Northern Iowa and an MA in Economics from Kansas State University. From 1985 through 1989, he was also a PhD. Candidate at Kansas State.