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The purpose of this message is to outline the IEEE Communications Society governance structure and introduce the team of experienced, talented, and dedicated volunteers who will be providing leadership to the Society in the next two years.
ComSoc's present management structure is quite complex and was approved by its Board of Governors in a meeting that took place during Globecom '95, held in Singapore. The new structure went into effect in January 1998 and attempts to better share the work load among a larger number of volunteers. It is still being fine-tuned, and last June a few changes and additions were made, including the creation of the position of Chief Information Officer (CIO), reflecting the growing importance of information technology and services.
The Society President is its chief executive officer, and there are six volunteers directly reporting to him. Two of these are appointed positions, the Treasurer and the just mentioned CIO. The other four are Vice Presidents, elected by the membership every two years, each having responsibility over very important and sometimes large areas in the society structure, namely: Technical Activities, Membership Development, Membership Services, and Society Relations. For the next two years the volunteers holding the Vice President positions are Curtis Siller, Doug Zuckerman, Horst Bessai, and Federico Tosco, respectively. They are all very experienced in society affairs. Curtis is a distinguished research engineer with Lucent Technologies, a two-term society VP, and a former Editor-in-Chief of IEEE Communications Magazine. Doug is also a two-term society VP, a former Director of Meetings and Conferences, and the man behind the success of the Network Operations and Management Symposium (NOMS). In his other life Doug works for Telcordia Technologies after a long career with Bell Labs. Horst is a professor with the University of Siegen, Germany, and until last year was ComSoc's Director for Europe, Middle East and Africa. Federico is now retired but until very recently was Director of Radio Communications at CSELT, the research arm of Telecom Italia. He was for many years ComSoc's person in Region 8 and has already been a member-at-large of our Board of Governors (BoG).
Our finances are being managed by Treasurer Harvey Freeman, a shrewd businessman with a long history of contributions to the Society in several of its committees, including the Board. He is probably better known as the person who built Infocom to its present status as the leading conference in the field of computer communications. Dale Armor is our first CIO, bringing to the position a wealth of experience in information technology. Dale is a resident of Canada and works for Tsoft.
Except for the VP-Technical Activities, all other VPs have Directors reporting to them. Directors are appointed by the President upon recommendation of the respective Vice President and are nonvoting members of the BoG, unless they happen to have also been elected members-at-large of the BoG.
The Vice President of Membership Services is responsible for all the products the society offers to its members and for the large community of communications engineers. Directors reporting to this VP are Director of Journals -- Jim Kurose, a professor with the University of Massachusetts and past EinC of both the Transactions on Communications and Transactions on Networking -- responsible for the production of all ComSoc journals; Director of Magazines -- Mark Karol, a top-notch researcher with Lucent Technologies, a past General Chair of Infocom and past member of the Strategic Planning Committee -- responsible for all our magazines and newsletters, in both print and electronic media; Director of Meetings and Conferences -- Bill Robinson, for many years associated with Nortel Networks in Canada and a long-time contributor in the area he is now leading; and Director of Education -- John Silvester, the Vice Provost for Scholarly Technology at the Univ. of Southern California and a former chair of the Technical Committee on Computer Communications.
Six directors report to the Vice President of Membership Development (VP-MD), who among its tasks overlooks the society's relationships with its chapters and the implementation of most special programs benefitting members, such as student travel grants and distinguished lecturer tours. These latter programs are under the responsibility of the Director of Membership Programs, Byeong Gi Lee (a distinguished professor in Korea and until recently in charge of the Asia Pacific area). There are four regional Directors in charge of ComSoc activities and membership development in their respective geographical regions. The volunteers occupying these director positions in the next two years are: North America -- Celia Desmond, also IEEE Director for Region 7; Latin America -- Marcello de Campos, a young rising star in his country; Asia Pacific -- Naohisa Ohta, a world-class researcher in signal processing affiliated with Sony Corp. in Japan ; Europe, Middle East and Africa -- Trevor Clarkson, a highly respected professor in the United Kingdom directly responsible for several sister society agreements signed by ComSoc in the last two years. Finally, ComSoc recently created the position of Director of Marketing, reflecting the tremendous growth in our investments in this area. Since many of the marketing activities are related to membership development, this new position reports to VP-MD. The first Director is Roberto Saracco, who occupies a similar position at CSELT in Italy and is a past technical committee chair.
The area of Society Relations is in charge of ComSoc's collaboration with both national sister societies as well as with technical societies with roles similar to ours (e.g., OSA, ACM, ISOC) . The relationship with national societies is under the leadership of Tomonori Aoyama, Director for Sister Societies. Tomonori has held different positions in ComSoc, including member of the Strategic Planning Committee (SPC), and is currently also President of the Japanese Institute of Electronics, Information, and Computer Engineers Communications Society (IEICE-CS). Interaction with the second type of societies is under the stewardship of Nim Cheung, Director for Related Societies. Nim is a senior executive at Telcordia and a past society VP.
The core of the society's technical activities are in the Technical Committees. They are responsible for special issues in our publications, organization of sessions in our major conferences, organization of workshops, and in general defining technical directions in which the society should move. The Technical Committee chairs assemble in the Technical Activities Council (Justin Chuang from AT&T is the TAC Secretary) and report to the VP-TA.
In addition to all these executive positions and respective departments the society has four very important standing committees, two of them reporting to the President: Strategic Planing (Larry Milstein, Chair) and Nominations and Elections (Steve Weinstein, Chair). Two other committees report to the VP-Technical Activities: Awards (Hal Sobol, Chair) and Fellow Evaluation (Rick Baugh, Chair).
Of course, the top entity in the ComSoc management hierarchy is the Board of Governors. Voting members of the Board total 19 and are all directly elected by the membership. They are 12 members-at-large, the four Vice Presidents, the IEEE Division Director (see my March Message), either the past president or the president elect, and the society president who chairs the Board. The BoG secretary is ComSoc's Executive Director (Jack Howell), the head of our paid staff.
As you can see there is indeed an army, as global as the society itself, of extremely talented and devoted volunteers who dedicate a significant amount of their time to the progress of our beloved Communications Society.
Curtis A. Siller, Jr. Vice President Technical Activities |
 Horst Bessai Vice President Membership Services |
 Doug Zuckerman Vice President Membership Development |
 Federico Tosco Vice President Society Relations |
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 Mark Karol Director of Magazines |
 Jim Kurose Director of Journals |
 Bill Robinson Director of Meetings and Conferences |
 John Silvester Director of Education |
 Roberto Saracco Director of Marketing |
 Byeong Gi Lee Director of Membership Programs Development |
 Naohisa Ohta Director/Asia-Pacific Region |
 Trevor Clarkson Director/Europe, Asia and Middle East Region |
 Marcello de Campos Director/Latin America Region |
 Celia Desmond Director/North America Region |
 Tomonori Aoyama Director/Sister Societies |
 Nim Cheung Director/Related Societies |