[GB-Today] Press Release: CENIC’s CEO and President Resigns to Lead New National Network Initiative

[CENIC Editor]

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

CENIC’s CEO and President Resigns to Lead New National Network Initiative

Cypress, California (May 3, 2004) ­ Today Tom West, CENIC’s president and 
chief executive officer, announced that he is resigning his position 
effective June 30, 2004 to accept full-time responsibility as chief 
executive officer of the National LambdaRail, Inc. (NLR).

For the past year, West has been leading both CENIC and NLR.  West said 
that “thanks to the willingness of both the CENIC and NLR boards I have had 
a dual assignment.  However, we all realized that when the NLR got steady 
traction it would need full-time leadership. That day has arrived.”

“For the last few months, CENIC has operated very well under the capable 
leadership of Jim Dolgonas, CENIC’s chief operating officer, and CENIC’s 
seasoned and competent staff,” West said. “Indeed, they have all stepped up 
to the plate to help effectively manage the day-to-day operations over the 
past few months.”

"Tom has done an outstanding job at CENIC, evolving us from a small startup 
into a stable operating entity serving the diverse needs of the research 
and education community in California. He will be hard to replace,” said 
John Silvester, CENIC chair and NLR board member.  “Over the last few 
years, a major CENIC accomplishment has been the deployment of our 
next-generation CalREN network backbone, which utilizes leased dark fiber 
to deploy a multi-layer advanced network ­ one that has been emulated by 
many other states and even some other nations. In fact, it was this CENIC 
initiative, led by Tom, that inspired the formation of the National 
LambdaRail which is constructing a similar infrastructure at the national 
level.  It made sense for Tom to lead both CENIC and NLR during a 
transition period until NLR attracted sufficient funding to be viable. That 
time has now come and NLR needs the attention of a full-time CEO. CENIC's 
loss will be NLR's gain. This next generation network infrastructure at the 
state, national, and soon international levels allows the research 
community to explore new frontiers and at the same time provides a robust 
advanced network for production use by the education community. We wish Tom 
the best and look forward to working with him at NLR."

About CENIC
CENIC is a not-for-profit corporation serving the California Institute of 
Technology, California State University, Stanford University, University of 
California, University of Southern California, California Community 
Colleges and the statewide K-12 school system.  CENIC’s mission is to 
facilitate and coordinate the development, deployment and operation of a 
set of robust multi-tiered advanced network services for this research and 
education community. More information about CENIC can be found at 
www.cenic.org.

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Contact:

Julie M. Van Fleet
CENIC
Voice:  619.276.0090
Email:  Julie at cenic.org