NomCom -- 6 April 1003 -- IETF-Announce
---------------------------------------

nomination letter for new IAB members 
 

For the information of IETF members.  Here is a copy of the
nominations committee's recommendations for IAB members that was sent
to the ISOC trustees.
=============================================================================
Dear ISOC Trustees:

    Attached is a list of the six nominees for the Internet Activities Board,
along with a brief vita for each candidate.

    These candidates were selected through a lengthy evaluation process
that started in late January.  The committee formally and informally solicited
suggestions and applications from throughout the Internet community.  As
candidates were proposed for various positions, the committee determined if
it felt the candidate was suitable for any position in IESG or IAB (not just
those for which the candidate was nominated).  If candidate was felt to be
suitable for one or more positions, the committee took the step of confirming
the candidate would serve if asked.  The committee then deliberated over the
resulting lists of candidates.

    In the case of the IAB seats, the committee held a series of
teleconferences (over eight hours in the week of March 22nd alone) during
which the merits of each candidate and the special talents, strengths,
and attributes she or he would bring to the IAB were carefully considered.  In
cases where the candidate was not well-known to all committee members, a member
of the committee was typically asked to present the candidate's
qualifications.
During late stages of discussion, after broad discussions including the
liaisons, the committee met in executive session to make final decisions, with
only the voting members of the committee plus the non-voting chair (no
liaisons)
to avoid even a hint of undue influence.  (The committee would like to
emphasize that it has valued the participation of the liaisons from the ISOC,
IAB and IETF.)  Even in the late stages of discussion, the committee solicited
and considered new nominees as the committee determined that candidates with
particularly desirable skills or experience were not reflected in the
candidate pool.  All decisions were made in these highly interactive and often
animated teleconferences rather than via electronic mail.  These decisions
were made with as many committee members present and participating as
possible.
At no time were decisions made with fewer than five of the committee members
(plus the non-voting chair) participating, i.e., no decisions were made with
more than one active member missing.  All decisions were ratified with all of
the six active committee members participating (plus the chair).

     There were only six active participants because one individual selected
for committee membership was unable to devote the time required to serve.  This
was especially unfortunate because even modest participation would have added
to the cultural and geographic diversity of the committee membership, hopefully
improving our ability to identify potential European nominees and might have
increased our success rate when we attempted to recruit those we selected.  The
committee opted to continue with the membership as originally selected, in the
hopes that his time pressures would ease and that he would be able to engage in
the process.  Furthermore, the alternates selected at the outset would not have
contributed to the committee's diversity.  Although he remained on our mail
distribution list, much to the regret of the committee, neither electronic mail
nor live telephone conversations were able to engage his active participation.

    We have made an effort to ensure that the nominees reflect the broad
spectrum of talents, responsibilities, and nationalities in the larger
Internet community.  Choosing from among a diverse set of candidates was
a tasking job and required us to make a number of difficult tradeoffs
and choices as we considered the various candidates.  We believe this
slate represents the best joint effort of the committee.

    If you have any questions or concerns about the process or our selections,
we encourage you to communicate them to me via e-mail to the address below and
I will forward them to the Nominations Committee.  We do welcome your questions
or further directions.

For the IAB/IETF Nominations Committee,
Jeff Case, Chair
case@cs.utk.edu

*****************************************************************************

                NOMINEES FOR THE INTERNET ACTIVITIES BOARD

Elise Gerich is a computer scientist MERIT, where she manages the
    routing database and operations for the NSFnet backbone, and through
    leadership in the Intercontinental Engineering and Planning Group (IEPG),
    FEPG, and NAEPG has worked to extend routing coherence throughout the
    world.  Elise is co-chair of the IEPG, and is currently working on
    backbone upgrades for routing and addressing.

Jun Murai directs the WIDE network at Keio University.  Previously he
    was responsible for operating JUNET.  He has been active in developing
    networking connectivity in Japan since 1984, and IP networking in Japan
    and the Pacific region since 1986.

Yakov Rekhter has been with IBM since 1984 and is currently a Research Staff
    Member and a manager of a High-Performance Networking group at the
    T.J. Watson Research Center.  He is one of the leading architects, as
    well as the major software developer, of the NSFNET Backbone Phase II.
    His contributions to the NSFNET project include areas of routing, network
    management, and network topology design.  He is a noted expert in
    routing, and a leading designer of BGP and IDRP.  He is a long time
    member of the IETF, the author of several RFCs, and a member of the
    ANSI X3S3.3 committee.

John Romkey is a principal at ELF Communications, a startup firm producing
    applications to make the Internet easier to use.  He formerly served
    as a principal at Epilogue Technologies and FTP Software, Incorporated
    where he applied his theoretical and practical network management
    experience.  Previously, he was a member of a research group at MIT under
    Dave Clark.  His particular area of expertise is in extending Internet
    technology to the desktop, principally through his contributions to the
    design and implementation of software which forms the core of many freely
    available and commercial implementations of TCP/IP for MSDOS/PCDOS-based
    personal computers.  He also designed the packet driver specification.

Major Michael St. Johns is a Program Manager at Advanced Research Projects
    Agency (ARPA).  He holds the MS degree in Information and Computer Science
    from Georgia Tech.  He previously was assigned to the Air Force Data
    Services Center, Defense Communications Agency as program manager for the
    Defense Data Network managing the NIC and BBN network development.  He was
    one of the initial members of the IETF and is the author of a number of
    security-related RFCs.

W. David Sincoskie is the Executive Director, Computer Networking Research,
    at Bellcore, and is responsible for leading Bellcore's participation
    in the Aurora gigabit testbed.  His particular area of expertise is
    in the design and simulation of broadband packet switches.  He holds
    a Ph.D. from the University of Delaware and is an Adjunct Associate
    Professor at the University of Pennsylvania.