Calit2 Director and UC Irvine Dean Appointed to Broadband Task Force by Governor Schwarzenegger
Sacramento and San Diego, CA, November 30, 2006 -- California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger today announced the appointment of Calit2 Director Larry Smarr, UC Irvine professor and dean of the School of Information and Computer Sciences Debra Richardson (an academic participant in Calit2), and 19 other experts to a newly-created, bipartisan Broadband Task Force.
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The Broadband Task Force will bring together public and private stakeholders to remove barriers to broadband access, identify opportunities for increased broadband adoption and enable the creation and deployment of new advanced communication technologies. In October, the Governor signed an Executive Order to clear the government red tape for expanding broadband networks and to create the Broadband Task Force, which was expanded to 21 members earlier this month.
"California is number one in so many different things, whether it is biotechnology, stem cell research, protecting our environment, creating jobs or our university system. The Golden State must remain competitive in the telecommunication revolution so that we can continue to attract the best, the brightest and the most creative workforce in the world," said Governor Schwarzenegger. "Broadband will help build California so we can grow our economy, create great jobs and stay ahead in the global marketplace."
Calit2's Smarr, 58, has served as director of Calit2 and a professor of computer science and engineering in UCSD's Jacobs School of Engineering since 2000, after 15 years as director of the National Center for Supercomputing Applications at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He is one of five San Diego-based members appointed to the task force. The others are: Cox Cable general manager William Geppert; Paul Hernandez, director of community development for the Metropolitan Area Advisory Committee Project; California State Senator Christine Kehoe; and Peter Pardee, vice president of business development at Hughes Network Systems and a member of the board of directors of CommNexus San Diego.
Calit2 participant Debra Richardson, 52, has worked at UC Irvine since 1987. She currently serves as the Ted and Janice Smith Family Foundation Dean of the Donald Bren School of Information and Computer Sciences. From 1976 to 1987, Richardson did research and taught at the University of Massachusetts. Previously, she was a contract consultant specializing in defense aerospace at UC Irvine, and a programmer in telecommunications for Linkabit (co-founded by QUALCOMM founder Irwin Jacobs).
Fourteen others were also named to the Broadband Task Force: Ellis Berns, Rachelle Chong, Charles Giancarlo, William Huber, Wendy Lazarus, Lloyd Levine, Michael Liang, Bryan Martin, Timothy McCallion, Sunne Wright McPeak, Milo Medin, Peter Pennekamp, Rollin Richmond, Emy Tseng and Jonathan Taplin. Taplin is a participant in Calit2's CineGrid project, and has served as an adjunct professor at the Annenberg School for Communications at the University of Southern California. He is also chairman and chief executive officer of Intertainer Inc., and is a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.
For biographies of all 21 members appointed to the Broadband Task Force today, go to Governor Schwarzenegger's news release at http://gov.ca.gov/index.php?/press-release/4823/ .
Related Links
Broadband Task Force News Release
Media Contacts
Media Contact: Doug Ramsey/UCSD Division, dramsey@ucsd.edu
Anna Lynn Spitzer/UCI Division, aspitzer@calit2.uci.edu