Press
Release for

CQR 2007 CHAIRMAN’S AWARD

The Technical Committee on Communications Quality & Reliability
(CQR) is an IEEE Communications
Society international professional organization that is unique in its service to
the quality, reliability and security professionals of the global communications
industry.  CQR Chairman Kenichi Mase, Professor,
Niigata University, Japan, honored four individuals with the CQR Chairman’s Award
at an awards ceremony during the annual CQR International Workshop in Fort
Myers, Florida on May 16, 2007.

Criteria upon which recipients were selected include: 

  • sustained
    contributions in the field of Quality, Reliability & Security of
    communications services, networks or systems; 
  • a demonstration of the core value
    of a professional society- adding value to others; and 
  • integrity consistent with
    that of a role model. 

2007 AWARD RECIPIENTS

Keith
Cambron, 
President and CEO, AT&T
Labs

for
sustained contributions in the field of network reliability, technology
introduction, and leadership in the research and development of
telecommunications systems

G. KEITH CAMBRON is President and Chief Executive Officer – AT&T Labs, Inc., AT&T’s applied research and development subsidiary.

Keith has a broad range of knowledge in telecommunications networks, technology, and design, and experience ranging from circuit board and software design to the implementation of large public networks. His expertise extends to the areas of switching, call processing, line and trunk signaling, SS7, VF and RF transmission, system testing, telco operations and traffic engineering, network reliability, and performance analysis. He has been involved in testing and introducing the ‘first in the US’ new technology:

  • first local digital switch (DMS10)
  • first integrated digital pair gain system
  • first SS7 Regional Bell Operating Company (RBOC) network

Before the recent merger with AT&T, he served as the president and CEO of SBC Laboratories, Inc. This role enabled him to bridge the innovation in the laboratories to bottom-line results for SBC companies. He has been profiled in Telephony and America’s Network, and was published in Proceedings of the IEEE Community Network Conference of 1992 and 1995. He received Telephony Magazine’s Network Design and Implementation Award for Fiber in the Loop in 1995.

He received his B.S.E.E. from the University of Missouri, and his M.S. in systems management from the University of Southern California. He is a retired Commander in the United States Naval Reserve. Keith is a senior member of IEEE.

Mr. Cambron receiving the CQR 2007 Chairman’s Award from Kenichi Mase in CQR 2007 Workshop, Fort Myers, Florida

 

Dick
Lynch, 
CTO, Verizon Wireless

for
leadership in implementing wireless technology and bridging the IEEE and
industry to address the challenges of reliable wireless voice and data
performance

  

Dick Lynch is executive vice president and chief technical officer for Verizon Wireless. Lynch is responsible for the technology, architecture, planning, design and operation of the company’s coast-to-coast wireless voice and data network covering more than two million square-miles. Under his leadership, Verizon Wireless launched the nation’s first wireless broadband wide-area network.

In his prior assignment, he was executive vice president and chief technical officer for Bell Atlantic Mobile. Lynch has been at the forefront of wireless data solutions, starting with Cellular Digital Packet Data (CDPD) in 1995 when he led Bell Atlantic Mobile’s build of one of the largest CDPD networks in the country–delivering the first  application for mobile data for public safety and ultimately paving the way for mass market  wireless data services. He led the industry to advance Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA) into a commercial wireless offering, launching the nation’s first commercial CDMA service.  In 2004, Lynch again drove technology direction with the decision to deploy EVDO service broadly throughout Verizon Wireless’ national footprint.  Building on these core technology decisions, he has led the implementation and widespread adoption of key innovative services including wireless broadband access via laptop and PDAs, V CAST Music (a rich-featured, over-the-air music download service), IP-based Push-to-Talk, and turn-by-turn navigation on cell phones.

Lynch is a Fellow of The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc. (IEEE).   He has served as a charter member of the executive board of the CDMA Development Group, an organization responsible for promotion, advancement, deployment and future developments of CDMA.  Lynch is a member of the Federal Communications Commission’s Technical Advisory Council. He has also been awarded patents for advances in the area of wireless technology.

In the early years of wireless data development, Lynch served as chairman of the Wireless Data Forum, an organization dedicated to promoting the benefits of wireless data to end-user communities, the telecommunications industry, the media, and the information technology industry. Under his guidance, the forum was restructured and affiliated with the Cellular Telecommunications & Internet Association to insure focus on its efforts within the larger wireless industry. For this accomplishment, Lynch was honored with the CTIA President’s Award.

Recognized as a leader in advancing wireless technology and in building and operating vast wireless networks, Lynch frequently provides expert commentary for a variety of leading business and trade publications. He is a frequent guest lecturer in academia and industry on wireless technology and trends.

Throughout his career, Lynch has held a variety of positions in all aspects of planning, operations and engineering, beginning with New England Telephone in 1972. Prior to joining Bell Atlantic Mobile, he was general manager of operations for Bell of Pennsylvania’s Central Area, based in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.

Lynch is a 1970 graduate of Lowell Technological Institute (now UMass) where he received bachelor’s and master’s degrees in electrical engineering. He has also completed postgraduate work at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania and the Johnson School of Management at Cornell University.

Mr. Lynch receiving the CQR 2007 Chairman’s Award from Kenichi Mase in CQR 2007 Workshop, Fort Myers, Florida

George
Rittenhouse,
VP, Alcatel-Lucent
Bell Labs

for
pioneering research in optimizing the quality of mobile networks, for augmenting
wireless communications network resilience in life saving search and rescue
efforts during catastrophes, and for leading industry colleagues with a
technical excellence, a spirit of service and unyielding integrity

   

Gee Rittenhouse is Vice President of Bell Labs’ Technology Integration Group.  This group has a primary mission of taking Bell Labs research assets and innovations and driving them, through development activities and project management, into Alcatel-Lucent products and services.  In this position Gee is closely connected with all of Alcatel-Lucent’s business divisions, interlocking their needs and strategies with Bell Labs’ research activities, priorities, and innovations areas.

Prior to heading up the newly formed Technology Integration group, Gee was Vice President, Bell Labs Wireless Research.  He received his Bachelor of Science degree in physics from the University of California, Los Angeles in 1986.  Then in 1993 he received his Master of Science and Ph.D. degrees in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.  He joined Bell Laboratories as a member of technical staff in 1993 where he worked on high-speed circuits using X-ray lithography for optical networking applications.  He later joined the Wireless Research Laboratory at Bell Laboratories where his research focused on RF front-end radio architectures and cellular system engineering.  In 2000 he was promoted to Director of the Wireless Technology Research Department and led several projects including MIMO system development, cellular network optimization, wireless IP networks, and fourth generation wireless systems.  In 2002 he received the Bell Labs Fellow award.  He has numerous publications and patents in the areas of wireless systems and circuits.  He is married with two small children and enjoys learning, basketball, running, and playing jazz piano and drums.

Gee was recently appointed as an IEEE Distinguished Lecturer.

Mr. Rittenhouse receiving the CQR 2007 Chairman’s Award from Kenichi Mase in CQR 2007 Workshop, Fort Myers, Florida

Michael
Tortorella, Professor,
Rutgers University

for
pioneering work in service reliability theory and engineering, for sustained
contributions to reliable services, networks, and products in the
telecommunications industry, and for continued service to the CQR since 1986

  

As Research Professor at Rutgers, Mike Tortorella maintains an active research program of interest to telecommunications companies, encompassing stochastic network flows, service reliability management and engineering, and control of connectionless networks.  Mike also teaches graduate and undergraduate courses in statistics and industrial engineering.

A native of New York City, Dr. Tortorella studied mathematics and philosophy at the undergraduate and graduate level.  He has worked in telecommunications, served as a military officer, and is currently Research Professor of Industrial and Systems Engineering at Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey.  During his career with Bell Laboratories in the Bell System, AT&T, and Lucent Technologies, he developed expertise in network design and performance analysis, reliability management and engineering, survival analysis, information technology, and software engineering.  He also holds United States patent number 6,312,275, “Electromagnetically Locking Latch to Prevent Erroneous Circuit Pack Removal.”

Dr. Tortorella, a Distinguished Member of Technical Staff at Bell Laboratories, also served as technical manager of the Design for Reliability Processes and Technology Group.  His career at Bell Laboratories was marked by a consistent focus on the effects perceived by customers of failures in the telecommunications infrastructure, culminating with the publication in 2004 of the seminal papers in service reliability theory and engineering.  He was also the lead reliability engineer for the AT&T SL-280 undersea cable communications system, the first application of fiber optic technology in an intercontinental, underwater system.  Dr. Tortorella is also responsible for CADRE (Computer-Aided Design for Reliability), the current Bell Laboratories reliability modeling system for circuit packs that integrates thermal analysis, electrical stress analysis, and component reliability models to provide designers with real-time design for reliability feedback integrated with CAD. 

Dr. Tortorella is currently Managing Director of Assured Networks, LLC, a next-generation network and service reliability consultancy. Recent clients include Booz Allen Hamilton, Inc., Liz Claiborne, Inc., Amedia Networks, and the United States Department of Defense Office of Force Transformation.  

Mike is Advisory Editor of Quality Technology and Quantitative Management and has served as associate editor of Naval Research Logistics and Transactions of the Institute of Industrial Engineers.  He has also served as a judge at the Mathematical Competition in Modeling since 1993.

Dr. Tortorella receiving the CQR 2007 Chairman’s Award from Kenichi Mase in CQR 2007 Workshop, Fort Myers, Florida