Biography

 
Since 1990, Mr. Hopengarten has acted as a consultant to venture capital firms on communications investments, and as a lawyer in communications law matters -- especially those involving land use for dishes and towers. For example, he has advised on an investment in a two-way radio peripheral hardware manufacturer, and performed due diligence with a valuation on one of the largest mountain top antenna farms in the United States . He has also advised broadcasters with regard to leasing space on their towers, and land owners with respect to leasing land for towers. In addition, he founded Strong Signals LLC, a Maine company which owns and operates a major communications tower and site near Lewiston-Auburn. As a lawyer, he has advised in over 100 tower cases. In 2001, the American Radio Relay League published his book Antenna Zoning.

In 2009, the Society of Broadcast Engineers will sponsor the commercial version of his book, covering broadcast and cellular antenna structures. It will be published by Focal Press, a division of Elsevier.

 
From 1978 to 1989, Mr. Hopengarten was President of Channel One, based in Newton, Massachusetts, a company providing equipment and installation services for home and commercial satellite earth stations, as well as temporary downlinks for ad hoc networks. He installed over 100 downlinks and 15 towers, obtaining building and zoning permits, buying hardware and climbing towers to erect antennas. Beginning as a start up, the company grew to operate private cable TV systems passing 13,000 homes.

As president, Mr. Hopengarten coordinated all legal work, prospected for new systems and ventures, negotiated and closed all company deals, managed the banking relationship with (then) Bank of New England, managed the accounting relationship with (then) Deloitte, Haskins + Sells, and was ultimately responsible for personnel matters, as well as preparing and running all meetings of the company's Board of Directors.

Twelve years after its founding, the company was sold to its then single largest stockholder, Continental Cablevision (later Media One, then part of AT&T Broadband, then swallowed by Comcast), which owned 46% of the outstanding stock. All stockholders profited from their investments.

Mr. Hopengarten has published articles on various aspects of satellite television services and tower zoning in Communications-Engineering Digest, ComputerWorld, Dealerscope, Pay Television, Inside SPACE, CQ, Satellite Communications, Radio-Electronics, Cable Television Business, CableVision, Cable Marketing, Broadcasting, Cable Television Business, QST and the New England Real Estate Journal.

A frequent speaker at technical and trade events, Mr. Hopengarten has been a guest speaker for the Electronics Industries Association, the Satellite Communications Users' Conference, Online Systems, Payment Systems, M.I.T., Boston University, Boston College Law School, Resource Management Consultants, the National Association of Broadcasters, the Dayton HamVention (tm), the Society of Broadcast Engineers and others. He is interviewed frequently for articles, as well as TV and radio shows, on satellite television, mini-cable (tm) (SMATV) systems, and satellite teleconferencing, and has worked as a consultant to various companies and investors with an interest in the field.

Selected articles discussing Mr. Hopengarten and Channel One are available on request. Such articles have appeared in OMNI, The Wall Street Journal, UPI, The New York Times, The Atlanta Constitution, The Chicago Sun-Times, The Los Angeles Times, The Boston Herald, The Boston Globe, Business Week, and so forth, as well as virtually every cable and satellite communications trade publication.

Prior to founding Channel One in 1978, Mr. Hopengarten spent six years with Harbridge House, the multi-national management consulting subsidiary of Sears/Allstate. While at Harbridge House he worked on various projects for, among others, John Deere, the National Science Foundation, Allstate, Volvo, Fiji Sugar Corporation, Volkswagen, the U.S. Navy, Xerox, and the Massachusetts Consumer's Council.

Mr. Hopengarten is a graduate of Colby College (A.B., economics, Class of '67), Waterville, Maine, where he was the chief engineer of the college radio station, WMHB. While creating Channel One, Mr. Hopengarten taught Business Law, as well as Marketing, as an Associate Professor at Colby. He received his J.D. from the Boston College Law School (Class of '70). He is a member of the Bar only in the District of Columbia (where he was Law Clerk to the Chairman of the Federal Trade Commission), and Maine, by examination in each jurisdiction. D.C. Bar #114124, Maine Bar #1660. He is also a graduate of the Harvard Business School (M.B.A., Class of '72).

Holder of the Federal Communications Commission amateur extra class license since 1975, as K1VR, Mr. Hopengarten received his first FCC license in 1956. In 1993, he wrote the user's manual accompanying a software program for ham radio contesting that is the most popular such program in the world (over 25,000 users). He was also an alpha tester for the program, and designed or aided in the design of many of its screens. He serves as a Volunteer Counsel for the American Radio Relay League, working particularly on local zoning matters.

Mr. Hopengarten enjoys speaking French, but notices that his accent is better after one glass of wine. He can also stumble about in Spanish and German.

Mr. Hopengarten's wife is Betty E. Herr, M.D., a physician in a private group practice at St. Elizabeth's Medical Center and on the clinical faculty for Tufts Medical School . The Hopengartens reside in Lincoln, Massachusetts. They have a daughter and a son.