At our last meeting, I identified our four appointments to the California Emerging Technology Fund. As a reminder we named State Senator Martha Escutia, Mike Volpi from Cisco, and Carol Whiteside of the Great Valley Center, and me. I want to inform the audience of the four appointments to the board as named by the utilities.
AT&T is appointing the following three people:
- Rich Motta. He retired from SBC in 2004 and has a strong background on the telecommunications network and emerging technologies. In addition, he has experience working with and sitting on non-profit boards.
- Barbara Johnston. She is the Executive Director of the California Telemedicine & eHealth Center (CTEC). This organization facilitates the growth of telemedicine and has recently published a report on deploying ubiquitous broadband in rural California.
- James Kirkland. He is the Senior Vice President for Strategic Development and General Counsel of Covad Communications Company. He has a business and legal background in both wireline and wireless broadband technologies.
Verizon is naming
- Dr. Barbara O’Connor. She is a nationally recognized expert on telecommunications policy. She served eight years as chair of the California Educational Technology Committee that had the task of infusing technology in California’s K-12 schools. She is also the chair of the Alliance for Public Technology which is devoted to building constituencies on information age issues. She also serves on Bellcore’s Advisory Board.
I personally want to welcome these four board members and I look forward to working with the entire CETF board. The mission of the CETF—to increase the benefits of broadband to more Californians—is quite exciting.