It's hard to exaggerate the role one Akron businessman played in stabilizing one of the most lethal Iraqi regions, retired Marine Col. Ross Adelman said.

The difference in the western Anbar Province ''is like night and day'' since Dave Scantling arrived two years ago to lead the effort to rebuild the area's communications network.

Last month, the 42-year-old Scantling, who sold his business to take a Department of Defense assignment that led him overseas, received the department's second-highest civilian honor, the Secretary of Defense Medal for Outstanding Public Service.

The award only hints at the value of Scantling's contribution, said Adelman, who was the lead telecom officer for Multi-National Forces West in Al Anbar in 2006.

Anbar, about the size of South Carolina, was a ravaged countryside, with daily violence, no utilities and little hope of attracting the businesses and jobs needed to kick-start the local economy.

Without land phones, cell towers, fiber-optic cables or the Internet, local safety forces couldn't communicate with each other or their

headquarters while trying to protect their towns.

Government officials couldn't coordinate rebuilding efforts without risking sniper fire and roadside bombs to meet in person, or exchange ideas or information with the movers and shakers in Baghdad.

''So in comes Dave Scantling,'' Adelman said. ''He says, 'I think I can help you.' He's got the clout, the know-how, the strategic level of thinking and he understands business.''

This wasn't Scantling's first time in the embattled country. A couple of years earlier, he was contracted by an Egyptian company that had been awarded a mobile phone license in Iraq.

With the blessings of his wife, Molly, and their six children in Akron, he literally risked his life to help build a wireless network in the central part of the country.

First adventure

He recently recalled those days, flying down Iraqi highways with a private armed security force, hoping to avoid sniper fire, and watching the company he worked for negotiate the release of abducted cell-phone tower builders.

His motivation for being there was to build a reputation for his own Akron company, Storage Continuity, which helped companies recover data after a disaster.

''We were competing with well-established services and we wanted to be able to say to new customers, 'Have your providers actually been in a disaster zone?' Now we could say we had,'' Scantling said.

But his adventure encompassed so much more, he said, like helping to build a call center in Baghdad and watching it fill with Christian, Shia and Sunni women who left their differences at the door to work side by side.

When his two-year stint with that enterprise ended, he returned to Akron.

But within months, he was invited to join a new Department of Defense agency focused on streamlining business systems, including supply chains, accounting and personnel around the world.

He sold Storage Continuity and split his time between an office in the Pentagon and one at a Defense Department facility in Cleveland.

Get economy moving

But Scantling's experience in Iraq was about to pull him into a new project.

In April 2006, he participated in a conference call with Lt. Gen. Peter Chiarelli, commander of the forces in Iraq.

Chiarelli revealed his frustration with the economic and business barriers to rebuilding Iraq.

''The bottom line was, 'Look, I need a way to create jobs in Iraq to get military-age Iraqi men off the street and back to work. I'm a combatant commander, not a businessman. We need to get the economy moving and that's how we will win,' '' Scantling recalled.

Scantling knew exactly what the general meant.

There are no companies without investors, no investors or entrepreneurs without security, no security without police and army, and no police and army without communications.

But the infrastructure had been destroyed by the United States in the early days of the war to keep Saddam Hussein from coordinating his troops.

''We used to joke that telecommunications is like oxygen. You don't notice it 'til it's not there,'' Scantling said.

So the Defense Department responded with a task force focused on Iraq, and Scantling was uniquely qualified to head the telecommunications piece of the puzzle.

From June 2006 to December 2007, Scantling helped coordinate work that ranged from re-establishing fiber-optic lines to writing regulatory laws.

Once that effort was moving forward, Scantling's team immersed itself in finding investors for business opportunities.

Before the war, the economy was driven by some 200 state-owned enterprises that provided 26 million Iraqi people with everything from pharmaceuticals to food and clothing.

Those enterprises were shut down by the Coalition Provisional Authority after Hussein was deposed, leading to massive unemployment.

Scantling helped restart some of those state-owned enterprises to get people back to work. Today, they are operating with the help of private investors, with the expectation that soon, those investors will be able to buy the plants and get the government out of the private sector.

Adelman said that in his region, Scantling did in a couple of months what it would probably have taken the military a couple of years to accomplish.

''And he led the way himself,'' Adelman said. ''He wasn't some bureaucrat sitting in the green zone and drinking fancy coffee every day. He joined us in Fallujah and lived in a trailer and went through Ambush Alley and all the hot spots.''

Scantling left the Department of Defense last December, but continues to watch developments in Iraq with great interest.

Last month, Anbar was doing so well, the Marines were able to hand control of the region back to the Iraqis. And while Adelman praised Scantling for his role there, Scantling is quick to give all the credit to the Marines.

What's next

Meanwhile, Scantling has thrown himself into a new enterprise. His new company, Scantling Technology Ventures, is focused on the Mideast again, this time for a project that is laying new telecommunications cable on the floor of the Arabian Gulf to help connect that region to Europe.

One of his new missions, he said, is to engage other Akron-area businesses in overseas opportunities. Currently, he's working with Playaway, a Solon company, to put training material on a digital device.

''There's a lot of talent and skill here and a big need overseas,'' he said. ''I want to do what I can to leverage Northeast Ohio to the Mideast.''