Be human.

It’s easy to get caught up in the idea of “business,” especially for new and/or busy managers. Always remember, business is just people. Your clients, your partners, your peers and your reports are all individual humans. It may sound silly, but it’s key. Behave humanly, speak candidly, show vulnerability and encourage and expect the same from others. That’s the best team-building you can do. – Chris Grundemann

Chris is technically creative, hard working, and extraordinarily effective at working with both internal and external technical expert communities. A pleasure to have had on the team at CableLabs. I fully expect him to significantly move his organization and the industry.

Tom Lookabaugh, CableLabs

Chris is one of the sharpest minds you will be lucky to come across, whether in a personal or professional setting. His ability to cut through the noise and see the relevant elements and data in any situation is remarkable. 

Chris is intensely focused, dedicated, and capable. He absorbs and synthesizes data quickly, finds the leverage points, focuses on what matters, and delivers results. Any high-performing team will get a boost from engaging with Chris.

Andy Fisher, Myriad360

We hired Chris with high expectations. He quickly proved to be a good choice as he grasped new concepts exceptionally well and showed an aggressive personal learning regimen, surpassing his peers. I would highly recommend Chris in his future endeavors.

Ryan Privette, Virtela Technology Services Incorporated

Chris is extremely knowledgeable and, more importantly, readily shares that knowledge with his peers to promote better overall understanding and improvement.

Dan Zumar, Virtela Technology Services Incorporated

Chris is one of the most brilliant technologists and charismatic speakers I’ve met in a long time. He’s an absolute creative, has a mind focused on solutions, and is driven by a deep belief in what he does. He’s both an inspirational leader and great colleague. I’d work with Chris again any day of the week.

Lia Kiessling, Internet Society

Chris has the talent to completely embrace and encompass a technology and from that drive results. It is obvious that Chris enjoys sharing his knowledge base and ideas with others. It was a pleasure working with Chris.

John McQueen, Broadcom

Chris is a strong team player with tremendous attention to detail. His approach was always well thought out with solid backing to his ideas. His role and growth in the company were key to its survival. He was also very willing and able to wear multiple hats and was a flexible asset to have on hand.

Mikael Rasmussen, WavMax Broadband

I have worked with Chris on several projects over the years. His leadership, cooperation, and execution skills are first class. Chris looks at the big picture, identifies necessary actions, builds a plan, and gets the project done

Richard Jimmerson, ARIN

Chris is an engineer and leader of the highest caliber as demonstrated by his ongoing volunteer responsibilities within the Internet technical community and his unwavering drive.

Connie Kendig, Internet Society

He would always be available as a sounding board for complex issues and provided me with amazing insight on long term planning and ways to scale up teams and business processes.

Alex Tief, Myriad360

Chris is a focused individual, willing to go the extra mile to help customers, and do the job correctly. He is a great teacher, and a smart man.

Tyson Schaetzle, Tikkom Wire

Chris is always happy to contribute to a discussion or to an issue and is more than happy to lend a hand to both assist team members with their tasks or to lend his expertise in order to benefit the requestor. He is constantly providing knowledge transfer in a peer to peer manner, engaging others to work together to move a project forward or to resolve an issue. Most importantly, Chris is an open and honest communicator about whatever the topic of the moment is, something that is refreshing in today’s world. I could always count of Chris to lend his opinion or his ideas to any subject matter, and this becomes an important contribution for any team. Chris has tremendous talent and is a very hard working, team player. I would welcome Chris to my team at any point in the future.

Paul Diamond, Markley

In a wireless organization the network your products operate on needs to be reliable, dependable and operating at top efficiency. Chris made sure that was a reality. Chris was a leader in the day to day operation of our network, on initiating improvement designs for the future and helping out the other departments to close performance gaps. There was never a problem to hard to solve, a solution he was not willing to seek out or a cutting edge idea he hadn’t already researched.

Wayne Gibson, WavMax

Chris is a consummate professional. Motivated, expressive, talented in everything he attempts. His skills in making things happen for the better are top notch.

Mark Woodworth, CableLabs

Chris is a great asset to any company. His dedication and drive for results makes him a consistent high achiever.

Henry Yu, tw telecom

Together we conquered many challenges, won impossible battles in the vendor industry and created a unique security practice. He has an interesting set of talents of being an engineer, innovator, and a thought leader, but never mixes any of these roles. That is what makes him successful as a leader. “Never be comfortable” is what Chris would tell me, which is what pushed me to do my first tech talk. I now have dozens behind me within some of the largest conferences known in the security vendor industry. Chris is nothing short of supernatural.

Leo Cruz, Myriad360

One thing everyone should know about Chris, he always provides nothing less then quality customer service and technical support. His professionalism and skill far exceeds all expectations because he always goes the extra mile.

David Corbett, tw telecom

Working with Chris has been a real pleasure. He is open, friendly, intelligent, discreet, skilled, productive, driven, resourceful and trustworthy! Our organisation has really benefitted from Chris’s skills and knowledge.

Howard Baggott, Internet Society

Chris Grundemann was among the most energetic and competent members of our Council throughout his time as an elected member. I found(find) Chris a most thoughtful man who brought insight and experience to the role, but was also always a genuine and professional member exerting leadership with tact and good humor. I think highly of Chris both as a technical professional and community leader, but also as a trusted friend.

Bill Darte, ARIN Advisory Council

Chris consistently generates and delivers on new and creative ideas both within the guided bounds of a project or team goal as well as when left unbounded and allowed to explore. In addition Chris is a great team player willing to help whenever asked. Chris is also a competent and organized leader with great communication skills capable of managing projects from inception to completion.

Joey Padden, CableLabs

As Chris’ Editor for Exploring IPv6, a Day One book, he kept to his schedule, output exceedingly lucid prose, and gave a sense of instructional design to an extraordinary tough technology to deploy. On time, better than could be expected, and executed with grace.

Patrick Ames, Juniper Networks

It was a pleasure to work with Chris. Chris possesses very detailed technical knowledge and solid experience, but never lost sight of his strategic and business goals when using that knowledge and experience.

Graham McKinley, Overture Networks

Chris is objective, strategically insightful, sharp and on top of his game. He’s a great collaborator who is willing to change his approach mid stream or whenever, to accommodate others. He’s a very dedicated professional with strong personal leadership qualities as well as being open and willing to inspire and empower others.

Duangthip Chomprang, Internet Society