Board

 

Richard J. O’Brien
Chairman, President & CEO

 

David J. Farber
Carnegie Mellon University

Prof. Farber is a Professor of Computer Science and Public Policy in the School of Computer Science at Carnegie Mellon University and in the Heinz School of Public Policy. Dave served on the US Presidential Advisory Board on Information Technology and in 2000, was appointed to the Chief Technologist post at the US Federal Communications Commission where he served during 2000-2001. He helped conceive and organize CSNet, NSFNet and the NREN. Dave brought often-disparate groups into harmony, leading to sweeping changes across the infrastructure landscape and beyond.

Current professional affiliations:

  • FCC’s Technological Advisory Council and Advisory Council of the CISE Directorate of the NSF
  • Chief Scientist of the National LambdaRail
  • Visiting Professor of the International University of Japan and Advisory Board at the National Institute of Informatics of Japan
  • Member executive advisory board for President and CEO of Samsung Electronics
  • Advisory Board Memberships for the Center for Democracy and Technology and EPIC
  • Fellow of both the ACM and the IEEE and Trustee of the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF)

Past awards:

  • 1995 ACM Sigcomm Award for life long contributions to the computer communications field
  • 1997 John Scott Award for Contributions to Humanity
  • 1999 honorary degree of Doctor of Engineering from the Stevens Institute of Technology

Michael K. Ballard
EVP and CFO of Foodswing

A 27-year Silicon Valley entrepreneur, Mike is an accomplished startup company builder and manager. As president and chief executive officer of the Telebit Corporation, Mike drove the revolutionary development of the industry’s first dial-up router products. Cisco Systems acquired Telebit in 1996, and Mr. Ballard went on to run Cisco’s Dial-up Technology division. He was also the chief operating officer at UUNET Technologies, before it became part of MCI WorldCom, through its early Internet start-up stage.

In his early career, he held multiple technical roles at the pioneering Packet Technologies Inc., a company offering two-way interactive cable television services. He is also a partner of Aragon Ventures, a Palo Alto venture capital firm, and serves as an officer, director or advisor to two other high-technology companies and a premium winery operation in Saratoga, California.

Mr. Ballard holds a BFA degree from the University of Utah, Salt Lake City and resides with his wife and two daughters in Potomac, MD.

Richard Vaughan
ChartFacts.com

Richard has held positions in marketing and engineering in the formative years of companies creating markets in local-area networks, high-speed dial-up modems, communication software, novice-consumer Internet access, and customized client-server applications. After 13 years at Yahoo!, he is currently involved in two other startup companies. He lives in Atlanta with his wife and a constantly changing subset of their five children.

Mr. Vaughan earned degrees in Biology and Chemistry from the University of California, Irvine.