Mr. Ruppert is a Vice President at Morgan Keegan Technology Group focused on communications technology, wireless internet, and mobile applications.  Prior to joining Morgan Keegan, he was a Senior Associate at Jefferies & Company in the Technology, Media, and Telecommunications group.  Mr. Ruppert has advised on a wide variety of M&A, restructuring, and financing transactions for public and private technology companies, including Answers.com, BCD Semiconductor, Calix, iGate, Nortel Networks, Occam Networks, Quantum, Sierra Monolithics, and Syntel.  Prior to Jefferies, Mr. Ruppert was a business consulting manager at Nike in global sales and distribution.  Mr. Ruppert has an MBA in Finance and Strategy from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University.