Carousel Adds Executives As Cross-Country Expansion Continues

Among the new faces at Carousel as of this week are Aileen Meraz, vice president of sales, Western Region, and Duree Westover, regional sales director, Pacific Northwest Region.

Both are newly created positions, according to Carousel, and both Meraz and Westover are veterans of Quagga, the Avaya solution provider and managed services powerhouse that was acquired by Paetec in 2010 and became a Windstream brand after Windstream bought Paetec last year.

[Related: 15 Scenes From Carousel Industries' Customer Soiree ]

Meraz logged time at Avaya, Cisco, Lucent and other vendors. During her years as Quagga's sales vice president, she grew net new sales from $7 million to $49 million. She initially will focus on growing Carousel's California and Pacific Northwest footprints, though her team is also charged with building Carousel's presence in Arizona, Nevada and other Western U.S. territories.

Westover was a director at Quagga, where she managed a 17-person sales and marketing team and hit 230 percent of her sales quota for 2011, according to Carousel.

Carousel also shifted Andrew Sherman, previously regional sales director for Southern California, to managing sales in California and Arizona, reporting to Meraz. Bryan Gilbert, regional sales director for Northern California, reports to Sherman.

Exeter, R.I.-based Carousel has estimated 2011 revenue of $320 million and more than 1,000 employees in 27 national offices. The company has acquired several fellow solution providers in recent years and continues to expand its executive team.

Earlier this month, Carousel named Patrick Britton vice president of video and A/V integration, Michael Fitch vice president of managed and Premier One services, and Nick Kolintzas vice president of engineering operations.

Britton came from video integration giant AVI-SPL, where he'd been general manager, Mid Atlantic Group, while Fitch came from SAIC, where he headed program management, strategic planning and managed services delivery. Kolintzas also was a Quagga alumnus, and prior to Carousel he was senior director, managed services at that company.