ARIN XXVI is fast approaching and that means that the 2010 ARIN Elections are almost upon us. First and foremost I would like to remind/encourage/demand that everyone who is eligible to vote gets registered! The dead line to register is Tuesday, 21 September – which is only 4 days away!
As I reported in an earlier post, I was nominated for the AC (Advisory Council) again this year. Since then my candidacy has become official.
My Candidacy
I am honored and humbled to have been nominated among the many other prestigious and luminary candidates for the Advisory Council this year. At the same time, I believe very strongly that I am uniquely suited to take on the challenges that the ARIN AC will be faced with in the next three years. I believe this for 3 primary reasons:
1 – Commitment to Openness
I am committed to openness. I believe that the current Internet and all of the benefits and opportunities it has created are a direct result of the open manner in which it has been developed, managed and policed. I laid out why this matters in my 2009 ARIN Election “Platform:”
I don’t want to stray too far into a history lesson nor into one of my evangelical rants about the merits of the Internet and the openness with which it was created and which it now creates. Instead I should focus here on why my belief in openness is a favorable characteristic in an ARIN Advisory Council member. This is another simple question to answer: The ARIN AC is the legislative body for this region’s Internet address policy creation. The more open to community input, advice and sentiment that each AC member is, the more of a say each community member has in the creation of addressing policy. My goal as an AC member will be to facilitate the transformation of the communities desires into clean, efficient policy. I do not favor any one type of organization nor do I have any predetermined agenda save my single bias towards openness. Open access to the Internet and open access to the ARIN policy process.
2 – Bridge Building
No, I am not a civil engineer but I am very good at bringing divergent groups of people together and at finding common ground upon which great policy can be built. I tried to explain this a bit in my 2008 ARIN AC candidate speech:
…my thoughts wandered back to 6th grade and a session on debate. It was an interactive class project. We were tasked with debating an issue and then switching sides to argue the opposite view. I remember the day as the first time I realized I had a knack, I guess, for not only seeing the strengths and weaknesses of the arguments of both sides of an issue, but also being able to bring an energy and excitement to either side as well.
And I think that skill as a devil’s advocate and as a mediator, as well as my passion for the Internet and its bottom-up grassroots structure are why I accepted the nomination and threw my hat into the ring.
3 – Experience
While I am not one of the Internet’s founders by any means, I have been at this professionally for the (much) better part of a decade and as an amateur for most of my life. It started in my parents basement on my Dad’s TI, programming basic and exchanging code snippets on BBS’. Later there were PIs, IIs and IIIs connected to Prodigy and then to the Internet.
My career in networking started with SOHO installs, moving then to a small Wireless ISP where I got to design an entire service provider network (while answering the phones, supporting the sales staff and climbing 1,000 foot towers to install radios and antennae). I worked for years in operations and now am a carrier Ethernet architect for the the third largest metro-Ethernet provider in the United States. I hold several technical certifications including being JNCIE-M #449.
In addition to my technical experience and expertise, I am the founding chair of the US Colorado Chapter of the Internet Society, have been intimately involved in the ARIN policy process for over three years and have many hobbies which revolve around the Internet and networking (such as web development/design and commodity hardware routing and switching).
Your Support
I need your support. This is a crucial time in the Internet’s evolution and I want to be there to help preserve everything that we love about it over the next three years. If you agree that I am the right person for this job, please support my candidacy!
Here’s how:
- View and share my official bio/q&a: http://bit.ly/do3ypm
- Leave a Statement of Support: http://bit.ly/9Q0BND
- Introduce me to any DMRs that you may know!
- Register to vote, and vote (for me)! https://www.arin.net/participate/elections/voting.html
Thanks!
See you in Atlanta!
