ipHouse was founded by three of the Twin Cities' most experienced Internet Service Provider veterans -- Mike Horwath, Bil MacLeslie, and Bill Lyon.

Bil and Mike have been providing Internet services to Minnesotans since the early 1990s. They have been a part of the evolution of the Internet from the exponential growth of Usenet News, to the emergence of the World Wide Web. They have witnessed the Internet revolution from inside the industry. From the night of the Washington Avenue bridge fire that disconnected Minnesota from the rest of the Internet world in 1995 (google it) to Minnesota's passage of the nation's first Internet privacy law in 2002. They understand the industry, they know the technology, and they have weathered everything from non-redundant redundant lines to the dot-com bust.

Bil, Bill and Mike together grew VISI.com into Minnesota's largest and most respected ISP, the position it held in the first part of this century. The Bil(l)s and Mike (as we like to call them) are still in the industry for three basic reasons. They know what they are doing, they love the potential of the 'net to bring people together, and they believe that, just like in the beginning, there is a need for an ISP that is truly customer focused. ipHouse is privately held, locally headquartered, locally owned and locally managed. This gives us the ability to focus on our customers, not our stock price.

Bil MacLeslie

Bil is the Chief Executive Officer here at ipHouse. That fancy title translates to, "Everyone come interrupt me. My door is always open." Yes, it is "Bil" with one 'l'. The story on this is not quite as exciting as what you were thinking so we will just leave it at that. Bil has over 24 years of Internet experience, 9 of them at VISI.com developing their reputation that still survives today. Prior to VISI.com, Bil spent 2 years at the University of Minnesota operating networks for the Biochemistry Department and 10 years running a BBS.

Bil was lured into the field of technology after spending a decade mastering the technical challenges of theatre and live & recorded performance. As a stage and sound technician, he spent three years with the Guthrie Theater and toured nationally with such acts as The Replacements, REM, X, The Jets, Rod Stewart and The Nylons. He's worked his backstage magic with Graham Chapman, Bruce Willis, Harry Anderson, Theatre de le Jeune Lune, Emo Phillips, Todd Rundgren, Louie Andersen, The Minnesota Opera, Judy Collins, NRBQ, The Pixies, Tina Turner and countless others.

In 2002 Bil earned the coveted 40 under 40 award from The Business Journal, placing him as one of the top business people under 40 in Minnesota. Bil is also a former president of the Minnesota Internet Services Trade Association and has served on the board of the Minnesota High Tech Association. He actively monitors public affairs and regulatory issues relating to telecom and Internet in Minnesota.

Mike Horwath

Mike is the reigning CTO of ipHouse with over 17 years of technical Internet experience. Every good service provider needs at least one, though never more than one, crabby admin who is willing to speak the truth. Mike is ours. He cares deeply about the quality and reliability of our services. He and his team work hard to make sure that our networks and systems are always online and available. His basic attitude is that it is better to do it right the first time than have to interrupt playing WoW to fix something.

Prior to starting ipHouse with Bil and Bill, Mike spent 8 years at VISI.com as the lead tech/director of network engineering where he helped grow VISI.com to over $8 million per year in revenue.

Before he joined VISI.com, Mr. Horwath founded and operated Winternet. Winternet, with over 4000 customers, was the largest ISP in the Minneapolis/St. Paul metropolitan area in the mid 1990's. Ah... 9600bps, SLIP, Trumpet Winsock, Internet in a Box, and life before the web.

Before that... Mike had spent several years as a BBS operator, database author/administrator, and general systems builder/consultant dealing with a variety of different hardware, operating systems and databases, including PICK. Anyone remember PICK? VMS and DCL? SyncSort? DOS-5? DOOM? Kareteka? TPro BBS? COBOL? GNO?

Bill Lyon

Bill, is our CFO. Conveniently, he uses two 'l's in his name, making it easy for us to tell him apart from Bil MacLeslie. Bill left VISI.com in 2004 with Bil and Mike to found ipHouse. He too, saw a need for a customer-focused, local ISP. Bill is our number cruncher extraordinaire, helping guide and manage the growth of ipHouse.

In his spare time, Bill performs experiments with gravity and weightlessness. His superpowers include energy sourcing, cross-dimensional awareness, and probability manipulation.

Aileen Horwath

Aileen comes to ipHouse by way of VISI.com and MRNet. She has a long history of Internet sales and product development experience. One of the ipHouse Sr. Sales Gurus, she also works on marketing, product development, documentation and special products.

Her special talent lies in her ability to work as a translator between engineer speak and ordinary English. And before you ask, yes she does appear to have the same last name as the ipHouse CTO. Working in the Internet industry, meeting geeks and maybe even dating or marrying one is an occupational hazard. Hmmm, is there hazard pay?

Andy Kaplan

Andy joined ipHouse from Integra Telecom where he sold phone service and Internet access. At ipHouse as a Sr. Sales Guru, he has expanded his sales expertise to include everything from basic web site hosting to managed server arrays in our premier data center.

When Andy isn't closing sales, you are likely to find him off-roading over difficult terrain in his Jeep. He is passionate about his Jeep. If you ask him nicely, he may even show you a picture of her engine.

Doug McIntyre

Initially hired for his typing skills, Doug McIntyre has surprised us all. No, wait, what we mean to say is that Doug is ipHouse's preeminent network administrator. He has over 15 years of experience running Internet networks first at Winternet, then at VISI.com with Mike, Bil and Bill.

Doug is the nicest engineer here at ipHouse and will patiently answer questions even if you have already asked him the same question once or twice or a dozen times. Don't abuse him though. He controls our phone system and is not above doing a little selective re-programming. 'nough said.

Doug is scary smart and has a vast knowledge, the depths of which still surprises us. Doug probably still has a 3B1 in his basement. Don't ask...

Doug Rau

Doug Rau is the ipHouse webmaster, responsible for This Mess Here. Doug has been working with computers for over 700 million seconds, starting with programming on the Apple ][. In his younger days, he studied aerospace engineering and worked in the dark, seedy underworld of RF propagation prediction and analysis software, before becoming distracted by something shiny called the Internet. Doug spent 8 years as webmaster of VISI.com before coming over to ipHouse.

When Doug isn't programming, he is likely to be with his wife, gaming with paper and funny dice, listening to techno music, or watching anime. When Doug isn't near a computer, he is likely to be suffering withdrawl, please approach him only if necessary and do not make any sudden moves.

Eric Snyder

Eric has over 15 years of Internet experience in Twin Cities' Internet Service Provider market. Eric was one of the original founders of GoldenGate Internet Services in 1995 and in 2004, joined ipHouse with the merger of GoldenGate into ipHouse.

At ipHouse Eric has moved back into his original calling as a Senior Sales Guru. His attention to detail is legendary and he uses his powers of psychometry when working both with customers and with ipHouse staff. He wants us to point out that the psionic blast incident was years ago and was never officially proven.

Marie Listopad

Marie is our friendly billing Grunt. If you have a billing question or somehow your dog ate the check you were planning to send us, you get to talk to Marie.

Marie is by far the craftiest of the ipHouse staff. She knits, crochets and can even fold magazine inserts into little boxes. Sadly, her experiments with creative folding of monthly invoices interfered with our ability to mail them. Unlike the rest of us, she actually remembers to water the plants in the office.

Support Drones

Our support people are anything but generic drones. If you have ever called ipHouse Support, you know this already. What they are however, is publicity shy.

Our support techs have the knowledge and experience needed to help solve your technical issues from how to configure your mail client to how to get your DSL or T1 line back up and running after a Qwest issue. They are always willing to go the extra mile for our customers and are the inspiration behind the runner-up in our internal, ipHouse tag line contest, "We wait on hold with Qwest so you don't have to."

ipHouse support techs are also skilled in acting as remote hands and eyes for your colocated server. They have all worked at ipHouse for a minimum of two years. ipHouse has one-tier support, unlike some ISP's that split their support into different levels and then have the least knowledgeable people answering the phone.

When you call ipHouse support, no matter which support tech you get, you are assured that you will be speaking with a friendly, dedicated person who will give you the answers you need. (Although, sometimes not the answers you want. We believe in honesty here.)