Frank Robles has spent thirty years taking ideas other people called impossible and turning them into operating businesses. In 1998 he conceived of running metro communications over fiber with Ethernet, which became the metro Ethernet carrier model and a standard around the world. He co-founded the company that built it, raised capital for it, ran its operations and its treasury, and helped found the standards body that made it an industry.
Since then he has founded a carrier, a green data center and a consulting firm, run a seed fund, served as chief technology officer of a 3,600-person multinational, and led technology and operations at a legal marketplace and a public smart-cities company. Today he runs Robles Industries and GateTracker, and he still writes the core of what the firm builds.
Companies founded and led
- NanoSpace, renamed Yipes Communications. Co-founder and CEO, 1995 to 2001. Brand-name customers including Amazon and Google. Originated metro Ethernet in 1998. 36,000 miles of fiber, 600 points of presence, 165 data centers, $291 million raised. Later acquired by Reliance Communications for $300 million.
- Neopolitan Networks. Founder and CEO, 2002 to 2009. A metro Ethernet carrier across the Bay Area, South Florida and San Antonio, linked to New York and London. Hosted Keyhole, later Google Earth.
- CityNAP. Founder and President, 2005 to 2008. Texas's first 100 percent green data center.
- Robles Industries. Founder, 2010 to today. GateTracker, Chief Executive Officer since 2024.
- OakStone Ventures. General manager of a seed fund, 1999 to 2010, backing Kana, Keyhole and Yipes.
Executive roles
- Operational Technologies. Chief Technology Officer of a 3,600-person, $200 million multinational across eight divisions, 2010 to 2011.
- Austin Board of Realtors. Interim Chief Technology Officer through a modernization, 2013 to 2014.
- JustLegal. Chief Technology Officer, 2017. Built the team of 12 and led the sale of the platform to a public company.
- DigitalTown. President of Got.Law at launch, then Chief Operating Officer, 2017 to 2018.
- US Air Force, AFWERX SBIR Phase II. On the winning proposal team and development lead under prime Quantum Interface, $1.15 million, 2023 to 2024.
- ClearFunds. Chief Technology Officer, 2020 to today. DisinfectWell. Chief Technology Officer.
- Netcom, Apple, Alphablox. Engineering and quality leadership, 1992 to 1997, including Netcom's 1994 IPO.
Patents
- US 6,282,172. Generating acknowledgement signals in a data communication system. Issued August 2001.
- US 6,359,882. Method and apparatus for transmitting data. Issued March 2002. NASA had said TCP/IP could not carry communication between Earth and space; this work showed how.
Recognition
- Most Innovative CLEC, Interop 2000.
- Business Journal 40 Under 40 Rising Stars, 2006.
- Helped establish and sponsored the Metro Ethernet Forum, the first public standards body for metro Ethernet.
- Austin Mayor's Blockchain Challenge, 2018: second place, with the only working solution, which the city built its MyPass digital identity program on.
Selected speaking
Keynotes in Tokyo and Oita, Japan, 1999. Networld and Interop, kicking off the optical networking track, 2000. SuperComm 2001. The joint ITU-T and OASIS workshop on public warning standards, Geneva, 2006. SXSW in 2007 and 2018. FastCompany on data centers, 2008. Financial Executives International on big data, 2014. Texas Bitcoin Conference, 2018. Quoted in Internet Week, Network Magazine and Business Communications Review.
Boards and advisory
YMCA of Greater San Antonio, director and IT committee chair, 2008 to 2025. San Antonio Technology Accelerator Initiative, director. Hispanic Hackers, senior board member. Boards of NanoSpace and Yipes and seven subsidiaries, Neopolitan Networks, HeavyMail, AgileMedia and Ascencia. Advisory board, YY Software. Advisor to SanityDesk and to Lost Light Studios.
How he works
- Test and ship. His career started in quality engineering, building the test harness before the product and documenting so anyone could step in. That habit is in everything the firm builds.
- Measure the business, not the activity. At Yipes, Operational Technologies, the Austin Board of Realtors and DigitalTown the first thing he built was the KPI reporting, because a leadership team cannot fix what it cannot see.
- Build the core himself, then hire. A platform gets its shape from whoever writes its core. On the Air Force SBIR he took a product idea from zero code to a working solution, alone for a long stretch, before the team arrived.
- Think like an owner. He has raised the money, run the treasury, paid the staff and closed companies down when they stopped making sense. He tells clients when the thing they asked for is the wrong thing.
“Frank provided invaluable guidance on expanding the business. His advice on outsourcing roles, building a strong team, and demonstrating success rather than relying solely on equity funding was strategic and cost-effective.”
The career record
Each of these has its own record on the Robles Industries site.
- NanoSpace and Yipes In 1998 Frank Robles proposed running business communications over city fiber with Ethernet equipment. That idea became the metro Ethernet carrier…
- Neopolitan Networks A metro Ethernet carrier built without outside money until its network carried paying customers on critical operations. Only then did Frank Robles…
- CityNAP San Antonio's first carrier-neutral network access point, built in a derelict building and run on 100 percent renewable power. The first green data…
- OakStone Ventures Twelve years on the investor side of the table, as general manager of a Palo Alto seed fund. A founder who works with Frank Robles gets an advisor who…
- Operational Technologies Chief technology officer of a $200 million multinational with eight divisions and one IT technician. He left it with executive governance, monthly…
- Austin Board of Realtors The board brought Frank Robles in to find out whether technology was failing the organization and its members. It was. They asked him to stay a year…
- DigitalTown Frank Robles built a startup's platform, led its sale to a public company for stock, and then ran operations for the buyer: a launch, a regulated…
- Where it started Before the carriers, the data centers and the executive roles, Frank Robles spent seven years making software that shipped and worked. Build the test…
In the words of people who worked with him
“If I had to use one word to summarise Frank it would be 'integrity'. Frank does what he says he'll do.”
“Frank impressed me with his broad and deep IT experience, complemented by a great business head and first-class people skills. Frank is calm, organized, and a mentor to his teams.”
“His leadership really helped us get everyone from development to sales more focused on bringing a commercially viable product to market after several lackluster attempts.”
“Frank presented countless system upgrades that improved efficiencies and produced tangible results.”
“Thanks to Frank we efficiently started the finance modeling process for the start-up company.”
“Frank had the vision, passion and patience to transform and nurture a local ISP into a National Service Provider that defined a new category.”
“Frank is unequaled in his knowledge of cutting edge LAN/WAN technologies, and delivers his expertise in an unpretentious manner.”
“They are by far the best ISP we have dealt with.”
“There was never an ambiguous state of things when Frank is in charge.”
From public LinkedIn recommendations.
Div42 and Robles Industries
Div42 is the commercial software and technology practice of Robles Industries LLC, a Texas company founded in 2010. Robles Industries is also the entity for government and defense work; its site is roblesindustries.com.