Barry M. O'Brien
Barry M. O’Brien serves as the President and General Manager of Partner Consulting.

Mr. O’Brien established Partner Consulting Services in 1998 as a division of Partner Communications Group. He assembled a team of telecommunications professionals with extensive working knowledge of technology deployment, operations and regulatory requirements. The consulting practice has worked with many large businesses and municipalities in the evaluation and management of complex telecom voice and data platforms. Partner Communication merged with Connecticut Telephone in 2004 to become Connecticut Broadband where he served as Executive Vice President with responsibilities for Network Operations, Information Technologies and Consulting Services.

Prior to joining Partner, Mr. O’Brien was Vice President of Sales & Service for Southern New England Telephone (SNET). He has been involved in the telecom industry for over thirty years and has held a number of executive and management positions at SNET in sales, marketing, product management, and new product development. He has negotiated substantial long-term product and service contracts with Fortune 500 companies, and implemented executive level customer forums to increase the value of service teams to their customers.

Mr. O’Brien is a graduate of Trinity College, and holds an MBA from the University of Connecticut.

Colleen Palma
Colleen Palma is the Vice President of Partner Consulting Services. Colleen manages a comprehensive range of telecommunications services and staff. Scope of services includes advanced network and voice platform design, optimization, implementation and management. Colleen has worked directly with many Fortune 1000 businesses, healthcare organizations and municipalities helping clients in areas of telecommunications platform replacements, expense management, vendor requests for proposal (RFP), contract negotiation and implementation.

Prior to working for Partner Consulting, Colleen served for 18 years as Technical and Project Manager for St. Francis Hospital, Mount Sinai Hospital, The Rehabilitation Hospital of Connecticut, Easter Seals, Elmcrest Psychiatric Hospital, and Bristol Hospital - all acquired into a statewide healthcare system known as St. Francis Care. Ms. Palma provided strategic consultation and operational support to over 50 system locations and affiliates. This role included voice integrated platform design and support, network configuration and installation, selection of public network facilities, and disaster backup and recovery planning and implementation. Colleen managed a team of technicians and vendors supporting this self maintained environment with an in house help desk, MAC team and service staff.

As past Chairman of the City of Hartford Information Technology Commission, Colleen has worked extensively with telecommunication providers (e.g. IEC/ILEC/CLEC) in the development of private/public partnerships to enhance and expand the City of Hartford information technology base. She has facilitated initiatives, which provide state of the art infrastructure and technology for charter schools. While serving as Vice Chairman of the Board of Directors of Hartford’s first local charter school, the Sport Sciences Academy, she chaired the Facilities and Technology Committee.

Nancy Wickett
Nancy Wickett serves as the Vice President of Partner Consulting’s Service Bureau, overseeing project work related to both Telecom Expense Management (TEM) and Workload Management.  Expense Management programs, including network audits, ongoing monitoring and tracking of telecom expenses, and recovery of credits for billing errors are customized to meet the needs of Partner’s clients.  In addition, Nancy manages the provision of offsite support for clients, with the equivalent of a full telecom department available on an “as needed” basis.

From 1993 until 2005, Nancy was co-founder and Vice President of TelPro Associates, where she focused on the cost reduction and optimization of network services for a wide range of businesses and municipalities.  She has assisted clients in all phases of telecom network management including: RFP development, network cost analyses and feasibility studies to help identify voice and data network options, as well as ongoing telecom expense management. For some clients, Nancy has been providing support services continuously for many years.

Nancy holds a Bachelor of Science degree from the University of Connecticut.