RoW People

Obituary: David Simmonds, 73, passed away on Jan. 14 following a battle with cancer. For more than 55 years, Simmonds displayed leadership and enterpreneurship in the Canadian telecommunications and electronics industries. Founder of the Lenbrook Group, Clearnet Communications, NAD Electronics, AirIQ and many other enterprises, he was a mentor and encourager to many. He is survived by his wife Barbara and their six children. He also had 23 grandchildren. Darius Breau has retired from his position of manager operational policy at Industry Canada. He has been replaced by Mélanie Robert who previously worked in the department’s wireless networks group. Before joining the public service, Breau was an office manager with J.D. Irving. He began his career in the public service with National Revenue Taxation where he was a collection officer and a payroll auditor. More recently in his career, he moved to the former Directorate General Radio Regulation (DGRR) as manager Spectrum Management in 1991. Jodi White has joined the Earnscliffe Strategy Group as the lobby firm’s COO. She was once the top adviser to Conservative politicians Joe Clark, Kim Campbell and Jean Charest. White, a former journalist, was also the PMO secretary during Clark’s mandate in 1979-1980. Paul Russo, founder of Silicon Optix and Genesis Microchip, has joined ATMOS Corp.’s board of directors. He is currently president, CEO and chair at Silicon Optix. ATMOS is a developer of system-on-a-chip embedded memory products. Terry Buckley has been appointed VP, retail sales at Rogers Wireless Communications. In this role, Buckley will be responsible for all sales and service initiatives at Radio Shack retail outlets, Rogers AT&T Wireless Communications Express Stores and all national retailers, including Rogers Video stores. He brings more than 15 years of experience to the table having most recently served as VP operations for Ontario at Rona Retail Canada Inc. He also worked at Sobey’s Inc., where he was VP Price Chopper stores. Prior to joining Sobey’s, Buckley held senior operating roles at Willson Stationers and Loblaws Supermarkets. Aliant Inc. has named a new president of its telecom subsidiary. Roch Dubé has been appointed president of Aliant Telecom. He was formerly president of Connexim, a telecommunications outsourcing subsidiary of Aliant. Dubé previously held positions at Bell Canada and Bell Sygma. Bill Collins, former president of the Ottawa Centre for Research and Innovation (OCRI), has taken a job at the University of Ottawa as co-chair and senior research fellow for a project entitled International Smart Cities Collaboratory. Collins was replaced at OCRI by Jeffrey Dale last November (RoW, Nov. 27/01). TRLabs has appointed Reginald Bird as its new chair of the board of directors. He joins the company following his retirement from Nortel Networks Corp. where he was president of the company’s Asia South Pacific region from 1998 to 2001. He worked for Nortel for 11 years. Prior to joining Nortel, he was president and CEO at Manitoba Telephones from 1987 to 1990. He also served on the board of directors of several telecommunications firms and other organizations. Chrysalis-ITS has appointed David Longbottom president and CEO of the security company following the resignation of Steve Baker. Longbottom joined the company last February as VP operations. Baker is leaving to pursue other opportunities but will remain an advisor to the company and keep his seat on the board of directors. Longbottom brings more than 15 years experience in the telecom and networking fields where he has held senior level positions at Nortel Networks. His most recent position prior to Chrysalis-ITS was as senior VP of operations at ObjecTime, now Rational Software. Infowave Software Inc. has appointed Travis Lee Provow and Barb Richardson to its board of directors. Provow is currently group VP of McLeod USA which acquired Intelispan last May where Provow was president, CEO and a director. Richardson is currently principal and director of SpringBank TechVentures, a Calgary-based investment fund which follows companies in the enabling technologies, infrastructure, and services for the wireless, Internet and telecommunications fields. Lucent Technologies has named Patricia Russo as its new president and CEO. She spent 20 years with the telecom giant before leaving to become president and COO of Eastman-Kodak eight months ago. The lengthy search took more than a year after the company’s board of directors dismissed Richard Ginn in October 2000. Iridium service provider Roadpost Inc. has appointed Brad Sherrard VP business development. He will be responsible for strategic partnerships, the company’s distribution network and evaluating new technologies, products and services. Nortel Networks Corp. has appointed Greg Mumford to CTO. He was previously president of the optical long haul networks division, which has been taken over by Brian McFadden. Mumford has held a number of senior executive and general management positions during his 30-year career at Nortel. He played a significant role in the development of many of the company’s products including its 10 Gb/s product portfolio. McFadden, who has a 22-year career with Nortel, will be based in Montreal. He has worked in several departments during his tenure including systems engineering, product marketing, product management and general management. Luc Lussier has been ousted as CEO of Lumic Electronics, a company he helped found in 1999. Earlier that year, he was let go from Philsar Electronics, a company he also founded. The company said in a statement that the removal of Lussier is consistent with the company’s business strategy. Charlotte Burke has returned to the Bell family of companies. She is now VP of convergence at Bell Mobility. Burke had left the BCE group in November 2000 to join promising Bluetooth communications equipment provider Classwave . Phil Rogers has joined the law office of Osler, Hoskin and Harcourt LLP. More specifically, he will be joining the law firm’s communications law practice. Rogers has extensive experience in telecommunications, broadcasting, Internet privacy and regulatory law. Before joining Osler, he was a partner at another major law firm and prior to that was assistant general counsel at Bell Canada. The Wireless Telecommunications Bureau at the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has appointed Michael Ferrante as chief of its commercial wireless division’s licensing and technical analysis branch. That group is responsible for processing and issuing licences for commercial mobile radio services. Ferrante joined the FCC in 1972 as an engineer in what was then the Common Carrier Bureau’s domestic radio division. In the ensuing years, he helped analyze and authorize the first two developmental cellular authorizations and was involved in reviewing the initial applications for many of the cellular markets.

RoW People

News | January 22, 2002

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