J. Rob Loud is the founder and CEO of Imcon International Inc., the Atlanta-area company he established in 2017 to commercialize portable, self-powered internet for remote and stressed environments. He leads development of the Internet Backpack, a mobile connectivity platform designed to reach users across more than 90% of the planet.
Before Imcon, Loud spent years as a technology consultant on large-scale wireless network projects and as an institutional investor. He had worked with Fortune 500 technology organizations and was looking for infrastructure that could serve people the commercial internet still missed. The underlying research originated with a Syracuse University effort. Loud acquired the relevant intellectual property from a private company and formed Imcon to put it in the field.
His public case for the product is practical rather than abstract: keep a fire crew talking in the hills, give a hurricane team a path out after towers fall, or hand a classroom in Liberia a library that does not depend on a fiber build. He has described the company’s investor thesis as “doing well by doing good”—using connectivity as essential infrastructure for education, health, and emergency services, not as another consumer gadget.
Loud is based in Marietta, Georgia, and remains the company’s primary commercial voice, including reseller expansion into Latin America, South Asia, and Oceania.
Dr. Dale W. Meyerrose, Major General, U.S. Air Force (Retired), joined the Imcon board in February 2018 and was elected Chairman that April. In August 2019 he was also named President, while remaining Chairman. In that dual role he works with management on growth markets, revenue strategy, and the introduction of new technology.
Meyerrose served 30 years in the Air Force after graduating from the U.S. Air Force Academy in 1975 with a B.S. in economics. He later earned an MBA from the University of Utah and a Doctor of Professional Studies in Information Management from Syracuse University’s School of Information Studies. He became a major general in 2002 and retired in 2005.
He was chief information officer for multiple Air Force major commands and unified combatant commands, including USAFE, Air Combat Command, Air Force Space Command, NORAD, U.S. Space Command, and U.S. Northern Command. On September 11, 2001 he was Director of Command Control Systems for NORAD, supporting North American air sovereignty. He later became NORTHCOM’s first CIO, with responsibility for communications that support homeland defense and military assistance to civil authorities.
After uniformed service he was the first President-appointed, Senate-confirmed Associate Director of National Intelligence / Intelligence Community Chief Information Officer and Information Sharing Executive for the Director of National Intelligence. In industry he served as a vice president and general manager at Harris Corporation, leading cyber growth strategy. He is president of MeyerRose Group, LLC; has taught at Syracuse and at Carnegie Mellon University’s Institute for Software Research, where he directed the Cybersecurity Leadership certificate program; and has served as a trustee of the U.S. Air Force Academy Falcon Foundation.
A highly decorated Southwest Asia veteran, he has been inducted into multiple halls of fame and recognized with lifetime achievement honors across the communications and cybersecurity communities. He has said he accepted the Imcon chair to help deploy the technology with education and first-responder partners.
