Aaron D. Cowell

AARON D. COWELL JR. is President and Chief Executive Office of US LEC
Corp. He has been involved in numerous operating areas of the company’s
business and legal affairs since 1996, including its IPO in April 1998.
Mr. Cowell joined US LEC in June 1998 as Executive Vice President and
General Counsel. Later that year, he assumed responsibility for US LEC’s
sales and field sales support functions. In 1999, his executive
management duties were expanded to include US LEC’s engineering,
operations, regulatory, customer care services and marketing
departments. Mr. Cowell was appointed as President and Chief Operating
Officer of US LEC in 2000, and was promoted to Chief Executive Officer
in 2001. He holds positions on the Technology Policy Committee of the
U.S. Chamber of Commerce and on the Executive Committee for ALTS (The
Association for Local Telecommunications Services), through which he
helps promote regulations and decisions that will facilitate fair
competition in the telecommunications industry. Before joining US LEC in
1998, Mr. Cowell spent 11 years with Moore & Van Allen PLLC, a large
Southeastern law firm, where he represented, among others, US LEC and
Alcatel, primarily in corporate finance and merger and acquisition
matters. Mr. Cowell is a graduate of Harvard Law School and Duke
University.