MERIC Solutions was founded in Johnson City, Tennessee, a place where small businesses, healthcare providers, community organizations, and local enterprises depend on reliable connectivity just as much as the largest national brands.
Our roots are local.
Our reach is national.
And our commitment is personal.
Built out of real world frustration, both as a customer and as a business owner.
Before MERIC existed, our founders experienced the same pain you have:
We lived those problems, on both sides of the counter. As customers, we watched critical services grind to a halt.
As business owners, we watched staff scramble, customers walk away, and revenue evaporate.
And the most shocking part?
There was no simple, reliable, modern solution.
So we spent over a year designing our own.
A solution engineered to withstand real-world failure.
A solution built around redundancy, reliability, and modern cellular infrastructure.
A solution designed for the business owner who can’t afford to be offline, ever.
That solution became MERIC Solutions.
From Johnson City to businesses across the country, our solutions support organizations of every size; from single site retailers to large distributed enterprises.
But no matter how far MERIC grows, we remain committed to our foundation:
MERIC Solutions is led by professionals with decades of experience across networking, internet service, telecommunications, business operations, and infrastructure engineering. Our leadership team brings together technical expertise and real-world experience supporting businesses of all sizes..
Chris Rodriguez
Founder & CEO
Chris is a seasoned telecommunications entrepreneur with a track record of building connectivity solutions that solve real-world problems for businesses and underserved communities. After founding and scaling multiple companies—including OTR Mobile, which delivered internet services to more than 30,000 customers—he created MERIC Solutions to bring resilient, redundant, business-grade connectivity to organizations that cannot afford downtime. His leadership is rooted in resilience, innovation, and a commitment to empowering others through reliable technology.
Steve Fortmann
TBD
Steve drives innovation at MERIC Solutions, transforming complex connectivity challenges into reliable, elegantly engineered systems. He oversees technology direction, R&D, system design, and the development of MERIC’s proprietary failover, provisioning, and monitoring platforms. With a career spanning decades in designing practical, scalable solutions for real-world connectivity problems, Steve ensures that MERIC stays on the leading edge of resilient, redundant, and intelligent networking.
George C.
Director of Business Development
With extensive experience in B2C and B2B sales, George has spent his career helping customers and organizations adopt technology that solves real problems. He began working with Chris during the early days of OTR Mobile, supporting its rapid expansion to tens of thousands of customers. At MERIC Solutions, George oversees business development efforts, nurtures strategic relationships, and leads the company's outreach to businesses seeking reliable, redundant connectivity solutions.
