The operable provisions of An Act Establishing and Funding the Massachusetts Broadband Institute (H 4864) relating to the MBI board are Section 6 – which indicates the required qualifications for appointed MBI board members—and Section 8—which indicates that the terms of all appointed MBI board members will be staggered (one through four years, respectively). The Broadband Act states that all four members appointed by the Governor “shall have knowledge and experience in one or more of the following areas: telecommunications, broadband infrastructure, public-private partnership development, information technology or other fields of experience consistent with the mission of the institute.”
Ex Officio Board Seats
There are five ex officio seats on the 9-person MBI board:
Chairperson of the Board: The Secretary of Housing and Economic Development or his designee
Assistant Secretary C. Stanley McGee (designee for Secretary Greg Bialecki)
Stan McGee is Assistant Secretary for Policy and Planning in the Executive Office of Housing and Economic Development. There, McGee supports Secretary Greg Bialecki with respect to all strategic policy initiatives and coordinates various agencies and departments within the secretariat on overall policy direction. McGee also serves as Director of Wireless and Broadband Affairs. McGee worked for over seven years as a corporate and securities lawyer at Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr LLP in Boston, where, among other things, he advised public and private companies in the areas of corporate governance, NYSE, NASDAQ and SEC regulatory matters, general corporate and securities law and business and corporate planning; represented issuers and underwriters in initial and follow-on public offerings; represented early-stage technology companies and venture capital investors in equity and debt financings; and represented both acquirer and target companies in numerous asset, merger and stock purchase transactions. McGee was named a “Massachusetts Super Lawyers Rising Star” in business and securities law in the May 2006 and 2007 editions of Boston Magazine.
McGee was born and raised on a farm in Selma, Alabama. He graduated from the University of Alabama, magna cum laude, and Phi Beta Kappa, in 1992 with a special honors B.A. in history and French. While at Alabama, he was named a Harry S. Truman Scholar and was selected by USA Today as one of the top twenty undergraduates in the nation. He attended l’Université d’Aix-Marseille in Aix-en-Provence, France as a Rotary Foundation Scholar, and he received a second B.A. in modern history in 1994 from the University of Oxford, which he attended as a Rhodes Scholar. McGee graduated from Harvard Law School in 1998.
The Secretary of Administration and Finance or his designee
Anne Margulies (designee for Secretary Jay Gonzales)
Prior to becoming Chief Information Officer for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, Anne Margulies was the Executive Director of MIT OpenCourseWare, MIT’s initiative to make available the basic teaching materials for essentially the entire curriculum openly and freely over the Internet. Previously, Anne held several senior positions at Harvard University, serving as assistant provost and executive director for information systems.
Anne also serves on the Court Management Advisory Board, the Sabre Foundation Advisory Board and is a member of the Board of Directors for Heading Home, Inc.
The Commissioner of Telecommunications and Cable or his designee
DTC Commissioner Geoffrey G. Why
On June 15, 2009, Geoffrey Why was appointed by Governor Deval Patrick as the Commissioner of the Massachusetts Department of Telecommunications and Cable. From October 2007 until his appointment, Mr. Why was the General Counsel for the Department. Previously, Mr. Why worked as a civil and criminal litigator. From 2001 to 2007, Mr. Why was an assistant attorney general in the Massachusetts Office of the Attorney General, Consumer Protection and Antitrust Division, where he specialized in telecommunication and cable cases. In addition, he was a co-chair of the Attorney General’s Diversity Committee from 2003-2007. In 2006, Mr. Why was presented the Edward J. McCormack Jr. Award for Excellence by the Attorney General for his work on behalf of Massachusetts consumers. From 1998 to 2001, Mr. Why was an assistant district attorney at the Suffolk County District Attorney’s Office, Appellate Division. From 2002 to 2005, he was a first-year legal writing instructor at Boston University School of Law.
Mr. Why has been active in a number of community groups. He has been a member of the board of directors of the Asian American Lawyers Association of Massachusetts since 2003 and the board of the Massachusetts Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights from 2006 to 2008. He is currently a Commissioner of the Massachusetts Asian-American Commission. Mr. Why graduated from Boston College in 1988 and Boston College Law School in 1998. Mr. Why is married to Annamarie Why and they have two sons. They currently live in Watertown, MA.
The Executive Director of MTC or his designee
Mitchell L. Adams
Mitchell Adams is Executive Director of the Massachusetts Technology Collaborative (MTC), the state’s development agency for broadband, the innovation economy, renewable energy, and advancement of electronic healthcare solutions. The Massachusetts Broadband Institute is a division of MTC.
Under Mitchell’s leadership, MTC’s John Adams Innovation Institute is leveraging more than $35 million in federal funding for research centers at major universities and making critical investments to support regional economic growth across the state. The Renewable Energy Trust is helping communities build high performance “green” schools, supporting record numbers of solar and wind energy installations, and strengthening the Commonwealth’s growing renewable energy industry cluster by providing direct support to clean energy companies. And the e-Health Initiative is speeding the adoption of lifesaving healthcare technologies that also lower cost. Mitchell is also working with the Patrick Administration to support the state’s strategy for growing the state’s life sciences supercluster.
Mitchell has a distinguished record of 30 years in leadership positions in the private and public sectors in regulation, law enforcement, healthcare, banking/investment management, real estate development and in a variety of entrepreneurial ventures. As State Revenue Commissioner from 1991-1998, he downsized the agency over 30% by introducing cutting-edge information technologies, including the touchtone telephone system “Telefile,” now a national model. The Revenue Department’s Child Enforcement Program became a template for the country in terms of aggressive enforcement and the use of computers to speed collection of delinquent payments. Most recently he served as Chairman and CEO of HWT, Inc., a company that pioneered the use of advanced data mining tools to ensure the integrity of healthcare payment systems.
Mitchell is currently a member of the Board of Overseers of Harvard University and a member of the Overseers’ Committees for Information Technology and the Harvard Medical School. He also serves as a member of the Board of Trustees of the Boston Athenaeum. Previously, he served as Dean for Finance and Business at the Harvard Medical School and Vice Chancellor for Administration and Finance at the University of Massachusetts Medical Center.
Mitchell holds A.B. and M.B.A. degrees from Harvard University.
The Chairman of the Governing Board of the John Adams Innovation Institute or his designee
Donald R. Dubendorf, Esq.
Don Dubendorf currently serves as chairman of MTC’s John Adams Innovation Institute Governing Board. An attorney in private practice in Williamstown, Massachusetts, and a founding partner of Grinnell, Dubendorf, and Smith, LLP, Dubendorf complements his concentration in the area of business organizations, contracts and finance with considerable expertise in the areas of environmental law and land use planning. His familiarity with the complex issues involved in administrative compliance and advocacy has made him one of the area’s foremost attorneys in these matters, with a client list of colleges, hospitals, financial institutions and entrepreneurs.
Dubendorf was also a driving force in the Berkshire Connect telecommunications initiative, a model program that helped organize and focus a variety of constituencies in an effort to bring high-speed Internet to western Massachusetts. His work on this project attracted interest nationwide.
For his pioneering telecommunications efforts, Dubendorf was awarded the Mass High-Tech All Star Award in 2000. He is also the co-author of The Insider Buyout, published by Storey Communications, Inc. In 2004, Dubendorf was named as one of Massachusetts’ Super Lawyers. The list of 2004 Massachusetts Super Lawyers includes only the top 5 percent of Massachusetts attorneys in more than 60 practice areas and is based on surveys of more than 37,000 lawyers across the state and through independent research by Law & Politics.
Gubernatorial Appointments
There are four appointments made by Governor Patrick that complete the 9-person MBI board:
Brian Burke (term expires January 7, 2014)
Brian Burke is the Senior Director of State Government Affairs for Microsoft Corporation and works closely with Microsoft’s community partners and government officials throughout the northeast. Prior to joining Microsoft, Burke was a Policy Director on Senator John Kerry’s Presidential campaign. Before the Kerry campaign, Burke was Senior Counsel in the Washington, DC office of Holland & Knight, LLP. Burke also served in several senior government positions including as Senior Policy Analyst on the White House Domestic Policy Council, Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Army, and Counselor to the Secretary of Energy. Burke began his career as a trial attorney with the United States Department of Justice. Burke serves on the Board of Easter Seals Massachusetts, the Timothy Smith Network and the Commonwealth School and is a graduate of Brown University and the Georgetown University Law Center.
Dr. David D. Clark (term expires January 7, 2011)
David Clark is a Senior Research Scientist at the MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, where he has worked since receiving his Ph.D. there in 1973. Since the mid 70s, Dr. Clark has been leading the development of the Internet; from 1981-1989 he acted as Chief Protocol Architect in this development, and chaired the Internet Activities Board. His current research looks at re-definition of the architectural underpinnings of the Internet, and the relation of technology and architecture to economic, societal and policy considerations. He is helping the U.S. National Science foundation organize their Future Internet Design program. Dr. Clark is past chairman of the Computer Science and Telecommunications Board of the National Academies, and has contributed to a number of studies on the societal and policy impact of computer communications. He is co-director of the MIT Communications Futures Program, a project for industry collaboration and coordination along the communications value chain.
Linda Dunlavy (term expires January 7, 2012)
Linda Dunlavy is the Executive Director of the Franklin Regional Council of Governments (FRCOG). Dunlavy has worked for the FRCOG since 1993 and has led the organization as Executive Director since 1999. During her tenure as Executive Director, the FRCOG has grown to 45 employees with an operating budget of $4 million, and is recognized as a leader in regionalism across Massachusetts. Through her work, Dunlavy has served on a variety of regional and statewide committees and commissions. Since its inception in 2003, Dunlavy has been Co-Chair of Pioneer Valley Connect, an effort to bring broadband access to the three western Massachusetts counties that are known as the Pioneer Valley. She has served on several statewide transportation-related committees including the task force that created the award-winning MassHighway Design Guidebook. She currently serves on the Town of Hadley School Committee; the WGBY Public Television Board of Tribunes; the Board of Directors of Rural Development, Inc.; and the Board of the Franklin County Chamber of Commerce. She holds a Master’s degree in Regional Planning from the University of Massachusetts and a Bachelor’s degree from Boston College. Before working for the FRCOG, Dunlavy worked in the mental health field in Boston, managing programs that support disadvantaged individuals in obtaining job and life skills. Dunlavy lives in Hadley, Massachusetts with her husband Jim and son Cole.
Rick Oliveri (term expires January 7, 2013)
Rick Oliveri is the Director of Technology Management at Baystate Health, one of New England’s largest health care organizations, and the Co-chair of the Pioneer Valley Connect, an effort to bring broadband access to three Western Massachusetts counties that are known as the Pioneer Valley. Oliveri has 34 years of experience in Information Systems working in all areas of information processing, including Computer Operations, Applications Programming, and Technical Support. He has held the position of Director for Technology Management for 21 years, providing support for all processing platforms, operating systems and networks including PCs, file servers, midrange computers and the mainframe system. In addition to the traditional I/S infrastructure, Oliveri is responsible for Voice Communications, Clinical Engineering (Biomedical Equipment), and the Help Desk. Oliveri led the development of an Enterprise Wide Area Data Network which consists of 11 Springfield, MA, based locations connected with a redundant Gigabit fiber infrastructure, connections to Ware and Greenfield sites linked via 100Mb VON Services from Verizon, and over 50 remote connections utilizing T1 and broadband cable connections serving several physician offices throughout surrounding communities of Springfield, Greenfield and Ware. The voice PBX supports over 10,000 phone extensions. Oliveri holds a Bachelor’s degree from Westfield State College. Oliveri lives in East Longmeadow with his wife Renee. All of their four children are married and reside in East Longmeadow along with several grand-children.