The last two weeks have been filled with conferences. RSA happened June 6-9 and Cisco Live was June 12-16. There were also gatherings for Splunk, Juniper, and others around the same time in San Francisco and Las Vegas. While the general mood of the conferences seemed to be focused on how good it was to get people back in person the reality of what that looks like a world still affected by a global pandemic came into focus after everyone started getting back home. RSA, according to reports, has seen reported COVID infections as high as 20% of attendees based on informal polling numbers. Cisco Live, which boasted over 16,000 people in Vegas, is seeing similar numbers. While I was able to make it through the conference without testing positive many others that I was interacting with didn’t. Which calls into question the practice of having live in-person events during the pandemic. This and more on this week’s Rundown…

We appreciated his work ethics and clarity of thought. His mind was always on the “next step” and kept us all on our toes.

Ed Partch, American Tech Support

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 one of the most professional individuals I have ever worked with. His dedication to the success of our organization was paramount. I always relied on him to engage in intricate troubles knowing they would receive appropriate attention and follow through. Chris is an immediate asset to any organization and is most certainly.

Jim Meslovich, CenturyLink Business for Enterprise

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

Through the several tasks that we spent together in a professional environment, I have seen Chris accomplish things that many would consider impossible – both as a professional and technically – and neither has been a disappointment. Chris is a calculated risk-taker. He has an uncanny way of determining what the target market needs and has the capability of tweaking his designs and implementations accordingly. As a pragmatic leader and a realist, he can grasp ideas in a holistic manner and still pay attention to minor details. Chris has a well-deserved reputation as someone who is diligent and personable – two qualities that define him completely. As someone who is a creative thinker and possesses a can-do attitude, Chris is a pleasure to work with.

Kyle Smith, Markley

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

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 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

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 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

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

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

His intelligence and wit are only outshone by his friendly and helpful nature. Working with Chris is always a pleasure and a smashing success.

Susan Forsman, tw telecom

Chris is very knowledgeable, is always willing to explain and discuss, and is great at pulling together everyone’s input and moving things forward. Working with him has been a great experience.

Lisa Ruby, Motorola

Chris is highly technical and has excellent organizational and follow up skills. I assigned Chris several initiatives while assigned to my team and his performance was exceptional. He is self motivated and has extensive technical knowledge.

Ray Whinery, Time Warner Telecom

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

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

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

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 a really hard working person. Very smart technically & could handle issues very promptly. Was very nice working with him.

Nirali Desai, Virtela Technology Services Incorporated

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

I enjoy working with him on a professional and personal level.

Diane Turley, tw telecom

Chris is an exceptionally energetic individual, a talented thinker and an accomplished public speaker. He is a very rewarding person to work with due to the level of organization he brings to every project. He has vision and probity, a rare combination. I has been a great privilege to work with him.

John Springer, ARIN Advisory Council

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

Henry Yu, 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 was always on top of current technology and how this technology would fi