FCC Commissioner Anna Gomez staff changes: Hayley Steffen joins Office of International Affairs; Jessica Greffenius returns to the Wireless Telecommunications Bureau; Jonathan Uriarte joins as strategic communications and policy adviser from former Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel’s staff ... Washington Gov. Bob Ferguson (D) appoints Brian Rybarik, ex-Microsoft, chair of the Washington Utilities and Transportation Commission for six-year term starting March 3; he replaces David Danner, retiring … Commercial Space Foundation names Alicia Brown, ex-NASA, executive director … Privacy professionals group IAPP elects to board through 2025: Oliver Draf, Volkswagen; Kristie Chon Flynn, Google; Lara Liss, GE HealthCare; Susan Hintze, Hintze Law and Hintze Data Advisors; elected to the executive committee are: Caroline Louveaux, Mastercard (chair); Barbara Cosgrove, Workday (vice chair); Christina Montgomery, IBM (treasurer), Travis LeBlanc, Cooley (secretary); and Faith Myers, McKesson (past chair).
Incompas elects to board through 2026: For small companies, Gary Watts, Fuse.Cloud; Tom Spackman, Gigabit Fiber; Daniel Friesen, IdeaTek Telecom; Brian Worthen, Mammoth Networks; Elise Brentnall, South Valley Internet; for medium companies, Chris Champion, C Spire; Jill Sandford, FirstLight Fiber; Jon Clopton, Sinch; Ronald Mudry, Uniti Group; for large companies: Jeff Blum, EchoStar; Michael Galvin, Granite Telecommunications; Paula Boyd, Microsoft … MPA hires Josh Rubin, ex-National Security Council, as senior vice president-global strategy and chief of staff, effective Feb. 28, assuming some duties of Urmila Venugopalan, who's advanced to president and managing director-Asia Pacific region ... Associated Press promotes Michael Giarrusso to vice president-news strategy, new post.
2025 Cable Hall of Fame honorees: Ed Breen, General Instrument (retired); Joe Cohen, The Switch Sports Group, West Ridge Associates; Zenita Henderson, Point Broadband; Pat Kehoe, PK Network; Andrew Sorkin, CNBC; Bill Stemper, Comcast … Cybersecurity firm Nile adds Hemant Chaskar, formerly Exabeam, as chief information security officer … Macquarie Capital appoints David Farkas, ex-GE Aerospace, managing director … Data center services and managed cloud hosting firm Summit taps Andre Wu, former Accscient, as CEO.
T-Mobile US appoints board member Srinivasan Gopalan COO, new post, effective March 1 … The National Association of Broadcasters appoints to its radio board: Henry Hinton, Inner Banks Media; Ignacio Meyer, Univision; and Shoshana Shapiro, Cumulus Media; filling vacancies ... Southwire creates three new posts, promoting Juan Hernandez to executive vice president-residential and commercial group; adding Rohan Kelkar, ex-Schneider Electric, as executive vice president-utility and industrial group; and expanding role of Veronica Braker as executive vice president-operations … National OnDemand taps Janet Sanford, formerly USIC, as vice president-national strategic partnerships, new post … Telephone and Data Systems names Walter Carlson president and CEO, succeeding LeRoy Carlson, who becomes vice chair, new post …
FCC Chairman Brendan Carr appoints: Tom Sullivan as acting chief, Office of International Affairs, replacing Troy Tanner; Catherine Matraves as acting chief, Office of Economics and Analytics; Katie Gorscak as acting director, Office of Media Relations, replacing Paloma Perez Christie … Salt Point Strategies names Anderson Helton, ex-staffer for Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Roger Wicker, R-Miss., and Milla Anderson, ex-FCC, as vice presidents … FCC Commissioner Geoffrey Starks moves Wireline Bureau's Kiara Ortiz to acting legal adviser, replacing Anderson.
Adastra names Cosmin Tudor, former R Systems, as sales country lead-Romania … Communications tech provider BCN promotes Michael Ginsburg to senior vice president-sales, hires Dan Solomon, ex-Net2Phone, as vice president-sales, Western region … Wireless Support adds Perry Solomon, Solomon Growth Advisors, to advisory board … Industry Data Exchange Association names Patrick Knight, ex-Rexel, president, effective Jan. 6 … Stelia appoints David Hughes, ex-Genesis Cloud, as vice president-engineering.
FCC Chairman Brendan Carr promotes Jacob Lewis to acting general counsel, replacing Michelle Ellison; Patrick Webre to acting chief, Enforcement Bureau, replacing Peter Hyun; Eduard Bartholme to acting chief, Consumer & Governmental Affairs Bureau, replacing Alejandro Roark; Erin Boone to acting chief, Media Bureau, replacing Holly Saurer. Carr moves Joel Taubenblatt to acting chief, Wireless Bureau; Trent Harkrader to acting chief, Wireline Bureau; Debra Jordan to acting chief, Public Safety Bureau.
New FCC Chairman Brendan Carr to keep Greg Watson as his chief of staff; he names Scott Delacourt, ex-Wiley, chief of staff of the commission; Adam Chan, ex-Boyden Gray, national security senior counsel; Anthony Patrone, ex-NTIA, legal adviser; Matt Mittelstaedt, ex-office of then-Sen. JD Vance, R-Ohio, director-office of legislative affairs; Arpan Sura, former senior counsel-Wireless Bureau, senior counsel-spectrum and technology; Danielle Thumann, Carr's legal adviser, becomes senior counsel-wireline, public safety and consumer protection; Erin Boone, former chief of staff and wireless adviser to FCC Commissioner Nathan Simington, becomes Carr's senior counsel-media and enforcement; Wireline Bureau's Callie Coker, moves to legal adviser-chairman's office; Drema Johnson continues as Carr's confidential assistant; Stephanie Chambless, ex-House Task Force on the Attempted Assassination of Donald J. Trump, named special counsel-Office of the General Counsel ... GeoLinks names David Gray, ex-Splice, channel sales leader … Broadband telecommunications services company Boston Omaha adds David Graff, ex-Hudl, to board.
O-RAN Alliance reelects board chair Abdurazak Mudesir, Deutsche Telekom, and elects board directors and alternate directors for two-year terms: Yigal Elbaz (director), Brian Daly (alternate director), AT&T; Eben Albertyn, Jingyi Zhou, Boost Mobile; Yuhong Huang, Chich-Lin I, China Mobile; Yue Wang, Qingtian Wang, China Telecom; Abdurazak Mudesir, Petr Ledl, Deutsche Telekom; Takuya Sawada, Masaaki Koga, KDDI; Takaaki Sato, Masafumi Masuda NTT DOCOMO; Claire Chauvin, Atoosa Hatefi, Orange; Sharad Sriwastawa, Awn Muhammad, Rakuten Mobile; Ryuji Wakikawa, Alex Jinsung Choi, SoftBank; Enrique Blanco, Jose Luis Espla, Telefonica; Andrea Calvi, Marco Caretti, TIM; Michael Irizarry, Narothum Saxena, UScellular; Steven Rice, Edward Diaz, Verizon; Nadia Benabdallah, Francisco Martin, Vodafone.
Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo names to Commerce Spectrum Management Advisory Committee: Reza Arefi, Apple; Andy Bater, American Farm Bureau Federation’s National Technology Committee; Donna Bethea-Murphy, Inmarsat; Mary Brown, Salt Point Strategies; Hilary Cain, Alliance for Automotive Innovation; Michael Calabrese, New American Foundation’s Wireless Future Project; Stephen Devine, APCO International; Thomas Dombrowsky, T-Mobile; Michele Farquhar, Hogan Lovells; Mark Gibson, CommScope; Kalpak Gude, Amazon; Tim Harrington, Ultra-Wideband Alliance; Carolyn Kahn, Mitre; Colleen King, Charter; Jennifer McCarthy, consultant; Amit Mukhopadhyay, Nokia Bell Labs; Karl Nebbia, Huntington Ingalls; Aspasia Paroutsas, Qualcomm; Louis Peraertz, Wireless Internet Service Providers Association; Brian Regan, Quadra Partners; Dennis Roberson, Illinois Institute of Technology; Andrew Roy, Aviation Spectrum Resources; Jesse Russell, incNetworks; Sanyogita Shamsunder, NextNav; Jeff Stewart, AT&T; Christopher Szymanski, Broadcom; Rikin Thakker, NCTA; Bryan Tramont, Wilkinson Barker Knauer; Jennifer Warren, Lockheed Martin; and Robert Weller, NAB.