Tom Amontree  Senior Vice President-Strategic Communications & Industry Affairs 

Tom Amontree is Senior Vice President for Strategic Communications at the U.S. Telecom Association (USTelecom), the premier broadband trade association representing communications service providers and their technology partners.

Amontree is in charge of all external and member communications for the association, including media relations and publications. With an extensive public relations and journalism background, Amontree determines industry image and message development strategies for the association — working closely with the legislative and regulatory staff to advance USTelecom member priorities.

Prior to USTelecom, Amontree was Vice President for Strategic and Litigation Communications at the American Trucking Associations (ATA). In that role, he was instrumental in leading the association to a series of legislative and public relations victories that raised ATA’s profile in Washington, D.C. and transformed the organization into one of the most powerful trade associations in the nation’s capital.

Amontree also served for many years as USDA Director of Communications and senior advisor to U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Dan Glickman. He administered an $8.1 million budget while overseeing a staff of 120. Among many achievements, Amontree created the media and public outreach strategy for President Clinton’s new food safety plan that revolutionized the way the U.S. government inspects meat and poultry.

During the 1992 presidential campaign, Amontree was press spokesman for the Clinton/Gore Campaign in the key battleground state of Ohio. Before joining the campaign, he spent 10 years in broadcast journalism, as a senior reporter for KATV, in Little Rock, AR, and at WWSB-TV, in Sarasota, FL.