Click here for guidelines and information about the Circle of Excellence Program and sample Nomination Statement.
Circle of Excellence Program Guidelines.

2009 Winners

Winner for Q4 2009 announced at the Technical Committee Meeting on 27 October 2009 in Hong Kong, China:

Peter Wild, Vodafone

• Peter Wild of Vodafone has contributed to the Forum through his work over the past year on the upcoming LTE Interop Event in 2010. This event is the first IOT event concerned with the emerging LTE technology and is a major boost to the MSF as a facilitator of meaningful and leading edge IOT events.
  
  Peter is a key member of the LTE IOT Planning Committee and is working hard to ensure that the event will be a success. Always friendly and approachable Peter will play an increasingly important role in the run up to the event in his position as the nominated Logistical Lead for joint hosts Vodafone and China Mobile.
  

Winner for Q2 2009 announced at the Technical Committee Meeting on 28 April 2009 in Budapest, Hungary:

Larry Ma, ZTE

• Larry Ma's technical contribution to the forum in San Jose was "above and beyond"! Not only did Larry present insightful contributions on the Physical Realisation of Nodes defined within the 3GPP EPS Logical Architecture, but Larry also volunteered to represent the vendor community in the "MSF Education Session on LTE technology". The success of this Educational Session has improved the knowledge of 3GPP EPS technology within the MSF.
  

2008 Winners

Winners for Q4 2008 announced at the Technical Committee Meeting on 2 December 2008 in Nassau, Bahamas:

Ken Mills, BT

• Ken Mills is recognized for his outstanding efforts as host site manager at the BT lab during GMI 2008. He worked more hours than anybody thought possible during the event. He was always helpful and he remained positive throughout, offering constructive feedback and solutions to the varied problems that arose.
  
• Ken is also recognized for his effort to ensure that the lessons learned during the GMI 2006 networking were fully recognized in the GMI 2008 interconnect plan.

Tetsuo Inoue, NEC

Kunihiro Taniguchi, NEC

• Tetsuo Inoue and Kunihiro Taniguchi's energetic and enthusiastic involvement in the MSF IPTV Task Force was an immense contribution to the forum. The forum would particularly like to recognize their significant contribution to the successful development of the IPTV IA's and Test Case document, msf2008.169, in support of Scenario 3a.

Esi Arshadnia, Verizon

• Esi Arshadnia contributed to the efforts of developing the detailed test plans for GMI 2008. He is also recognized for his efforts at the Verizon host site during GMI 2008 and his management of the 18 participants at the Verizon site and the overall successful execution of the event at Verizon.

Winner for Q3 2008 announced at the Technical Committee Meeting on 8 July 2008 in Dublin, Ireland:

Richard Kaczmarek, National Communications System

• Richard Kaczmarek has been an indespensable member of the GMI Planning Committee and of the MSF as a whole. He, quite simply, is willing to do it all!
• He has been a valuable contributor to the GMI Network Planning Committee and has offered key insight into the design of the GMI 2008 Interconnect Network.
• His has offered input for the completion of the GMI IP Addressing Scheme and finding visual representations of the GMI Interconnect Network and Host Site configurations.
• Richard also represented the MSF at NXTcomm and provided assististance with the MSF's presentation and panel discussion.
  

Winners for Q2 2008 announced at the Technical Committee Meeting on 1 April 2008 in Shanghai, China:

Anil Gupta, Alcatel-Lucent

• Anil Gupta has made a tremendous difference and impact on the Technical Committee through all the time and effort he has contributed toward developing the MSF R4 Architecture.


• He has been a consistent contributor to the discussions regarding the MSF Architecture and his persistence in working through & documenting an extremely complex technical area in the face of conflicting contributions has been invaluable to the MSF and its preparations for GMI2008.
  

Wayne Cutler, Ericsson

• Wayne Cutler has made a significant difference on the Technical Committee and the GMI Planning Committee. Wayne joined the GMI Planning Committee and has actively attended and participated in GMI Planning and GMI Network Planning Calls. He has led the charge to solidify the MSF Requirements for the GMI 2008 Test Tool and has been working closely with the UNH-IOL to oversee their involvement in enhancing the GMI Test Tool.


• For the Technical Committee, Wayne has been a consistent contributor to the discussions regarding the MSF Architecture and to the Protocol and Control and Interoperability working groups. Wayne has also authored Implementation Agreements for the MSFR4 SIP-I,SIP-ISUP, and the Media Server Profile. Wayne’s technical knowledge is invaluable and he continues to provide exemplary services to the MSF.
  

Winner for Q1 2008 announced at the Technical Committee Meeting on 29 January 2008 in San Francisco, California, USA:

Peter New, Vodafone

• Peter New has spent countless hours with China Mobile to explain the fundamental importance of the MSF and its position in the industry. He has tirelessly worked to answer the almost daily questions that trickled in from China Mobile on every possible topic relating to the MSF.
• He has also done a lot to set the MSF NGN Interoperability Test Bed at the UNH-IOL off to a strong start by driving vendor participation in the Mc Interface testing and the Multi-Vendor Media Gateway Interoperability Event.

2007 Winners

Winner for Q4 2007 announced at the Technical Committee Meeting on 25 October 2007 in Seattle, Washington, USA:

Albrecht Schwarz, Alcatel-Lucent

• This award recognizes the frequent and outstanding contributions that Albrecht Schwarz has made for some years at MSF, highlighted by his IAs covering Session Border Gateways.
• In Q4 2007 Albrecht produced quality contributions towards the RTCP certification program, providing a timely and insightful analysis of the issues.
• Albrecht is a great advertisement for the life of MSF, frequently commenting in meetings and volunteering material.
• As the Seattle meeting testifies, he is rarely without a clutch of innovative contributions to present.
  

Winners for Q3 2007 announced at the Technical Committee Meeting on 17 July 2007 in Amsterdam, Netherlands:

MSF Task Group Chairs

• Ian Jenkins, Location-based Services
• Bhumip Khasnabish, IPTV
• Jim McEachern, Service Overlay Architecture
• Olov Schelén, QoS
  

Winners for Q2 2007 announced at the Technical Committee Meeting on 25 April 2007 in Montreal, Quebec, Canada:

Gordon Beith, Empirix

Gordon Beith is a long-time contributor to the MSF, going as far back as GMI 2002. During that time, Gordon has been an enthusiastic volunteer, helping to promote MSF's mission by staffing the MSF booth at several key tradeshows over the past two years. Membership support is a crucial part of the MSF's tradeshow program, and so we would like to thank Gordon for helping to make that a success.

2006 Winners

Nabeel Cocker & Rimma Iontel, Verizon

• Nabeel was key to organizing the Verizon physical layout, connectivity and addressing, and centralizing monitoring at GMI 2006.
• Rimma played a critical role in organizing activities at the Verizon site for GMI 2006, and specifically in maintaining the big Scenario sheets, in addition to serving as a site monitor and many other roles.

David Hutton & Peter New, Vodafone

• As well as supporting the event organization prior to the testing beginning and being on site for the full 12 days at BT, Dave and Peter were the front line support for the Vodafone supplied HLR that was a key factor in the Open Mc testing at GMI 2006.
• Dave and Peter have continued to support the event as a whole in preparing the report for the UK test site and have remained positive and enthusiastic for a task that is above and beyond their day to day duties.

Dan Warren, Vodafone

Dan has made an outstanding contribution to the MSF during his short time with us. As Berlin is his last meeting, it seems particularly appropriate to recognize his contribution, in particular:

Providing critical technical support to the media launch of GMI 2006 in person at Zonic's European NetEvent held in Garmisch, Germany and on the US media and analyst phone in a few days later.

Playing a major role in the IMS educational members event in Ottawa.

Consistently providing intellectually "heavyweight" contributions to TC meetings.

Ensuring that there is a succession plan in place within Vodafone to ensure that the MSF continues to receive appropriate support.

2005 Winners

Carol Daniels, MetaSwitch

Carol Daniels joined the MAE committee in January of 2005. Since then, she has led the effort to increase MSF’s visibility by increasing MSF participation in industry conferences and speaking events. She has made a significant contribution by securing high profile engagements for MSF speakers at VON, Broadband World Forum, and Telecom ’05. In addition, Carol has been an active member of the MAE’s Public Relations Sub-Committee which overseas all of the MSF’s PR efforts. Carol is an excellent example of how an MSF member can align the goals of MSF with their day job such that MSF can reap substantial benefits.

Yasuyuki Matsuoka, NTT

Matsuoka-san has produced several valuable contributions that support MSF’s next generation QoS architecture. He developed the COPS-PR Implementation Agreement and contributed to the QoS discussion with his distinguished knowledge of the latest router technologies. Due to his important contributions MSF is the only the forum that will successfully demonstrate a real NGN QoS solution.

The 3GPP/IMS Task Force

Though some members of this team are elected MSF officials and, therefore, ineligible as individuals, this is a nomination of the entire team (as one entity) for a Team Award. The team's co-ordinated work over several months, which resulted in a seminal White Paper, benefits the MSF community by aligning the MSF's work with state-of-the-art standards and by charting a coherent course for MSF's work for years to come. Even more significantly, this effort demonstrates the productive teamwork, co-operation, and interaction which are the hallmarks of the MSF.

Mike Bick, BT Ian Jenkins, BT Garland Sharratt, Convedia

Chris Daniel, Leapstone Jim McEachern, Nortel Juliet Bates, Alcatel David Francisco, Siemens

Cindy Morgan, AMS

At our last meeting the MSF recognised everybody who had had contributed to our major success in GMI2004, with one important omission! Here in San Francisco, we at last have Cindy with us to thank personally for all that she did in co-ordinating requests into the MSF office about this event. Always helpful, Cindy was the very bedrock of our efforts in 2004 and all too often, was left behind in the office when we were meeting at various exotic locations around the globe! She has without any exaggeration or exception, impacted positively on the relationship with every MSF member company in this room and now we thank her for all her efforts.

2004 Winners

Tom Taylor, Nortel Networks

Tom’s early attention to detail brought many issues to light early in the planning stages [of GMI 2004]. This allowed many details to be worked through in advance of the event to ensure it went smoothly.

Jong Hyuck Sun, Alcatel

Mr. Sun put so much hard work into establishing GMI2004 international link (both Internet 2 & Plain Internet ) between KT & BT also including IP addressing planning, routing resolution & documentation.

Ken Mills, BT

• Long term contributor to MAE
• GMI2004 planning team for 18 months tirelessly representing host interests
• Passionate determination to bring experience of GMI2002 into GMI2004

Peter Chang, Cisco Systems

Rich Seager, NG Technologies

Under Rich Seager's leadership the MSF achieved much including GMI2002 and the launching of GMI2004. Rich has led the TC through some of the dark times for both the industry and the membership and was instrumental in seeing to it that the MSF made progress and achieved recognition during this time. Now that he has stepped down from the leadership, he fully deserves this award in recognition for his dedication to the MSF cause.

2003 Winners

Dal Chohan, Fujitsu

The Circle of Excellence for Q403 is awarded to Dal Chohan from Fujitsu. Dal has earned this award for his professionalism in working with vendors such as Alcatel, Marconi & BT. In the true spirit of MSF collaboration, Dal has very quickly produced a Multi-service Access Gateway Implementation Agreement (MSF2003.117.00) which is both fit for purpose & which extends the influence of the MSF into this important area.

Paul Drew, MetaSwitch

Wayne Cutler, Marconi

Wayne has been instrumental in working through the tough designs of the GMI event this past year and has been a person that could be counted on for their input when needed. Wayne has also been helping the Protocol and Control working group and a key contributor to not only his but other contributions from his peers within the forum via comments and advice. His work and dedication has brought MSF forward in technical maturity.

2002 Winners

Simon Tavanyar, Siemens

In our attempt to put together the GMI-2002 Event, our GMI Project Team has invested a tremendous amout of time and effort. It is a quality group of committed individuals who I think are all exceeding what was expected of them. One that is certainly standing out is Simon Tavanyar, vice-chair of the Interop WG. He has worked countless hours offline to keep the project moving. He has been invaluable in putting together documents and requirements that need completed, doing many himself. He has provided the vast majority of all evaluation, analysis, and followup on test requirements, and participant matrix documentation...the GMI would have no chance of success without Simon.

Randy Haberman, WorldCom

Over the last 6 months, Randy Haberman has battled to make a fitting contribution to the MSF's Implementation Agreement for the Trunking Media Gateway. The work is detailed, with changing priorities & the frustration of late contributions. However, he has doggedly persevered and his work will go forward as an important influence on the industry as we strive to accelerate the deployment of open architecture multi-vendor next generation switching systems.

Mike Kallas, Vocal Data

Mike Kallas deserves this award because of the significant impact he has had on the MSF's forward programme through his work in leading the PSTF (Physical Scenario Task Force). As a result of his efforts, the MSF now has a prioritised set of Physical Scenarios which will be used to drive the MSF's 2002 Interoperability Event. This work is of particular importance as it bridges the work on functional architecture & protocol profiling with the need to demonstrate commercial exploitation to drive added value to the MSF membership.

2001 Winners

Susumu Yamamoto, NTT Corporation

Mr. Yamamoto has worked hard within both the Media Control working group and the Interoperability working group. He has consistently produced detailed and valuable technical contributions that are focused on the key deliverables of the MSF such as Implementation Agreements and interoperability test plans. His contributions and technical knowledge are of great value to the MSF's core mission of promoting interoperability.

Yasushi Takagi, NTT Corporation

Mr. Takagi has continuously attended the MSF technical meeting and he initiated the architecture study on Next Generation Mobile Communication network and its convergence on fixed network. He wrote several important contribution to the TC committee meting and edited the document on the architecture model on mobile communication network of MSF. We believe that he made an outstanding contribution to MSF on this area.

Mick Montague, Marconi Communications

It is my privilege to nominate Mick Montague for the MSF Circle of Excellence award. Mick Montague's contribution to the MSF has been highly significant. His commitment to the organization, his keen insight on technical and business issues, and his enthusiasm for life were attributes that have made the MSF an enjoyable and productive forum. Mick will be missed and as a token of our appreciation and respect I believe that it is appropriate, and deserved, that Mick should be awarded the MSF Circle of Excellence of Award.

Roy Mauger, Nortel Networks

Roy Mauger of Nortel Networks won this award for his work in extending the MSF architecture to include IP/MPLS. This is an important new area for the MSF to make its mark. Roy has risen to the challenge by demonstrating professionalism & technical excellence in leading an architecture sub-goup in this important area. His contribution has been significant both through his personal impact & by his ability to solicit substantial contributions from MSF membership.

2000 Winners

Marco Schneider, SBC Technology

I have been impressed by the very positive contribution Marco has consistently made to the Architecture Working Group, both contributing in his own right & also, always being willing to speak up & build on the work of others.

Chris Gallon, Fujitsu

Although not an elected nor selected member of the leadership for the Media Control Working Group, Chris Gallon has stepped into the leadership breach for the Media Control on numerous occasions. He has graciously accepted the role of taking minutes when the Vice Chair has been unable to fulfill those duties . Chris has done an outstanding job, not only capturing the notes but continuing to participate in the on-going discussions. In addition, Chris has consistently brought a high level of attention to the technical issues being discussed in the working group, participating vigorously for the last eighteen months or so, in helping the MCWG form their work. He has also been influential in bringing the appropriate resources and contributions from Fujitsu to the MCWG to help in areas where the group lacked the expertise (such as CAS). Chris has been one of the predominate players from Fujitsu in the MSF and has taken the work back to his company for review and analysis.

Ken Mills, BT

(Ken is always) behind the scenes, doing the hard work, attending the many meetings, working on slides, generating ideas, trying to figure out what we are doing as we are figuring out how to do it, all the while just doing it. And yet Ken has VOLUNTEERED (yes, you heard that right, volunteered) to be a member of the Marketing Awareness and Education Committee. That means he has been working very hard to help keep the MSF name in the world's footlights and to ensure that the 'stars' are in the spotlight while he shoulders a large amount of the work. Ken has been more than an active member; he has been a mainstay. He is part of a dynamic duo that hold no elected jobs, no resume-building titles. Ken has served as the focus for several specific tasks such as the updating of the MSF Presentation and member/ surveys. He has taken 'homework' assignments and action items and has actually completed them. He has continued to generate new ideas for how to put the MSF message into the world, and to refine the message we are currently sending. He also has helped to focus on the current members in order to educate them on the MSF as well as developing ways to improve the membership experience. Without Ken there would not be an MAEC.

Scott Yagel, Alcatel

Another foot soldier in the fight to make the MSF name known. (Scott) is behind the scenes doing the hard work , a tireless volunteer member of the Marketing Awareness and Education Committee. Scott, too, has been more than an active member; he is one of our flying buttresses. Scott has taken the lead for several tasks as well like coordinating the make-over of the MSF website. He even took the difficult and very un-PC job of answering the question "What is the difference between the MSF and the ISC?" as a homework assignment. He has taken on all requested duties and DELIVERED. Scott has been vocal, and supportive, and dependable and reliable. He has been a player since the very beginning and has worked to refine the message the MAEC has been sending to the world, to the MSF Board and leadership, to the MSF membership. He is one half of the MAEC.