2007 Board of Directors
Robert D. Atkinson, Ph.D. is APT Policy Chair and President of the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation. He is the author of the New Economy Index series which looks at the impact of the New Economy on the U.S., state and metropolitan economies. He is also author of the book, "The Past and Future of America's Economy: Long Waves of Innovation that Power Cycles of Growth" (Edward Elgar, 2005). While at PPI he has written groundbreaking reports on a wide range of economic and technology issues, including offshoring; growth economics; the role of IT in homeland defense; Internet taxation, privacy, and spam; telecommunications policy; e-government; and middleman opposition to e-commerce. He also directed PPI's New Economy Task Force, co-chaired by Senate Democratic Leader Tom Daschle and Gateway CEO Ted Waitt.
Previously, he was Vice President of the Progressive Policy Institute and director of PPI's Technology & New Economy Project. Before that he served as executive director of the Rhode Island Economic Policy Council, a public private partnership including as members the Governor, legislative leaders, and corporate and labor leaders. Prior to that he was project director at the former Congressional Office of Technology Assessment. While at OTA, he directed "The Technological Reshaping of Metropolitan America," a seminal report examining the impact of the information technology revolution on America's urban areas. Dr. Atkinson was appointed by President Clinton to the Commission on Workers, Communities, and Economic Change in the New Economy. He is also a member of the Task Force on National Security in the Information Age, co-chaired by Markle Foundation president Zoe Baird and former Netscape Communications chairman James Barksdale. He received his Ph.D. in City and Regional Planning from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 1989.
Lynne Bradley is director of the American Library Association's (ALA) Office of Government Relations. In this capacity, she serves as ALA's primary lobbyist coordinating the legislative and grassroots lobbying efforts on library issues including telecommunications, copyright, appropriations, privacy and the USA PATRIOT Act. Ms. Bradley has been with ALA for 12 years after working in public and academic libraries in Maryland and the District of Columbia. Before coming to the ALA Washington Office, she managed her own small research company, wrote a political column for a local monthly newspaper and served three terms on her local city council in Takoma Park, Maryland. Ms. Bradley has degrees from Cornell University and the University of Maryland.
Karen Buller, Secretary of APT and a member of the Comanche Nation of Oklahoma, is President & CEO of the National Indian Telecommunications Institute (NITI) and holds a Bachelors Degree in Education and a Masters in Child/Developmental Psychology & Social Psychology. Buller is one of a few Native Americans with telecommunications expertise related to Native American communities. She has testified before both houses of Congress and the FCC on Universal Service and other telecommunications issues related to Native Americans. Buller also serves on the Boards of Directors of the Universal Service Administrative Company, Libraries for the Future, Civil Rights Telecommunications Forum, Eisenhower National Clearinghouse as well as the National Congress of American Indian’s Digital Divide Task Force and the Navajo Education Technology Consortium.
Matthew Chase has served as the Executive Director of the National Association of Development Organizations (NADO) and the NADO Research Foundation since October 2003. From March 1997 to August 2000, he served as the association's Director of Legislative Affairs until he was promoted to Deputy Executive Director. Prior to joining NADO, he was the Chief Operating Officer and Membership Services Director of the Professional Managers Association in Washington, DC.
Chase has extensive advocacy experience with federal community, economic and rural development programs, including successful campaigns to reauthorize the Economic Development Administration (EDA) in 1998 and 2004, establish the Delta Regional Authority in the early 2000s and preserve annual funding for core rural development programs under USDA. He remains at the forefront in advancing federal policies to enhance rural transportation planning and services. In addition, he is a regular presenter on the impact of federal budget and appropriations trends on small metropolitan and rural America.
As the chief administrative officer of the NADO Research Foundation, he oversees a diverse set of projects and programs. These programs include the Economic Development Finance Service (EDFS), a subscription-based service providing information, training and networking opportunities for small business development finance professionals; the Rural Brownfields Awareness Project (EPA funded); the Rural Transportation Capacity Building Project (FHWA funded); a new initiative with EPA to promote regional approaches to environmental stewardship and economic development; and a new national center for regional transportation and economic development.
He holds a bachelor's degree from Hartwick College in Upstate New York and a master's degree in political management from The George Washington University in Washington, DC. He is a native of the Glens Falls/Lake George region in the foothills of the Adirondacks in Upstate New York. He is a founding member of the National Rural Network, a coalition of more than 50 national associations interested in rural policy, and serves as NADO's liaison to the Congressional Rural Caucus. He has been a member of the American Society of Association Executives and the American League of Lobbyists. He has also served on the Alumni Steering Committee for the Graduate School of Political Management.
Larry Goldberg is WGBH's Director of Media Access. He oversees the National Center for Accessible Media (NCAM), a research and development department at WGBH, and the two access production/service departments - The Caption Center and Descriptive Video Service. Mr. Goldberg has been at the forefront of accessible technology development and implementation, including captioning and descriptive video. He regularly publishes on media access issues, presents WGBH research at conferences, and consults for government and media and technology companies on access issues. Mr. Goldberg was a pioneer in the development of the emerging captioning system for digital television in the U.S. and is a member of numerous advisory boards at the FCC and across the country. In 1996, he was awarded a patent for "Rear Window™," the first closed captioning system for movie theaters and theme parks.
Paul Hernandez, APT Treasurer, brings over twenty years of experience working and volunteering in the community around social justice issues. Before joining the MAAC Project as the Director of Community Development/Community Technology, Paul worked in a variety of academic settings. For the past ten years he worked as a professor, teacher, and mentor at Harvard University, the University of California at Santa Cruz and at California State University at Monterey Bay. There he taught a variety of courses, all touching in some way on issues of social equality and social justice. At Cal State Monterey Bay Paul helped the Queretaro Research Project pioneer technology tools for use in basic anthropological research.
Through his work in the city of Watsonville Paul was able to bring innovative programs and technologies together to serve the rural poor. In the mid to late 90s, working out of a converted city jail, Paul successfully built the Enterprise Community Technology Center into a thriving hub where community members and technology can create new possibilities. Towards that end Paul created, with interested youth, the YCREW (Youth Computer Resources en Watsonville). Originally designed to build web sites for non-profit agencies, the YCREW has now added the entire city of Watsonville web site to its portfolio. For this work, and for his work with at-risk youth in the community, Paul received a congressional commendation from the office of Congressperson Sam Farr.
As Director of Community Development/Community Technology at MAAC Project, Paul is responsible for all of the technology initiatives being undertaken in the communities that MAAC serves, including Computer Technology Centers, course and curriculum development, digital video production—just to name a few. In addition Paul is currently working on a wireless broadband grid, providing access to the poorest region of the City of San Diego, Barrio Logan. The CHISPA Project’s (Community/Household ISP Alliance) broadly stated goal is to make technology an effective tool of empowerment for the residents who live there. The CHISPA is dedicated to overcoming the three largest obstacles to technology use in these underserved areas: accessibility (internet access), affordability (computer purchasing programs), and applicability (community based web portals).
Karyne Jones is President and CEO of the National Caucus and Center on Black Aged, Inc. (NCBA). During its 35 year history, NCBA has been the only organizations devoted solely to providing effective leadership in making minority participation in aging services a national issue and priority.
Prior to becoming NCBA’s executive officer, Ms. Jones was Executive Director of Federal Relations with SBC Telecommunications. Ms. Jones’s Capitol Hill experience includes Legislative Aide to Congressman Andrew Young and during his tenure as U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, she became his Public Affairs Officer at the UN and White House Liaison. She returned to Texas in the 1980s, began her own political career and became active on numerous boards, commissions and civic projects involved in issues on education, civil rights, environmental and economic development. Ms. Jones served for eight years in the Texas Legislature representing District 120 in San Antonio. During her tenure, she served on the Appropriations, State-Federal Relations, Corrections and Urban Affairs Committees. She also served as Vice Chair of the House Democratic Caucus and was a member of the Mexican American Legislative Caucus.
Ms. Jones is a graduate of Clark Atlanta University where she received her Bachelor’s Degree in Political Science and Northern Illinois University with a Master’s Degree in Public Affairs. She earned a second Master’s Degree in Public Policy/Administration from Harvard University.
Jeffrey H. Keefe, Ph.D. is Professor of Labor Studies and Employment Relations in the School of Management and Labor Relations at Rutgers University, New Brunswick, N.J., where he investigates technological and organizational change in unionized settings. He is also a research associate at the Economic Policy Institute and director of its Telecommunications Program, which released his report Racing to the Bottom: How Antiquated Public Policy is Destroying the Best Jobs in Telecommunications. He has published in the Industrial and Labor Relations Review, Industrial Relations, and the Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, numerous book chapters, and is the co-author of Turbulence in the American Workplace and Telecommunications 2000 Strategy, HR Practices, and Performance. He co-edited with Adrienne Eaton the 1999 Industrial Relations Research Volume, Employment Dispute Resolution and Worker Rights in the Changing Workplace. He recently completed a multi-year study of changing labor, employment and work practices in the telecommunications industry funded by the Alfred P. His other recent publications include Telecommunications 2004: Strategy, HR Practices & Performance (co-author, 2004), and "Can Unions Serve as Transformational Agents in Public Sector Workplace Redesign?" in the book, Going Public The Role of Labor-Management Relations in Delivering Quality Government Services (Cornell University Press 2003). Professor Keefe received a Ph.D. from Cornell University.
Helena Mitchell, Ph.D. is the Director of Technology Policy and Programs (OTP) for the Georgia Centers for Advanced Telecommunications Technology. She guides the development of the technology policy agenda and creates programs and services to strengthen Georgia's leadership in advanced technology. Dr. Mitchell holds the rank of Principal Research Scientist for the Georgia Institute of Technology and is the Principal Investigator and Director for a $5 million grant for a Rehabilitation Engineering Research Center on mobile wireless technologies for persons with disabilities. In tandem, she directs the Innovative & Dynamic Educational Applications for Learning (IDEAL) lab, which is a collaboration of experts creating innovative technologies that span educational, community and business environments.
Dr. Mitchell is serving on the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Consumer Advisory Committee and she has been appointed by Mayor Shirley Franklin to serve on the Telecommunications Policy Advisory Committee (TelePAC). TelePAC will provide assistance to the City of Atlanta regarding how to leverage the resources of the City to maximize the use of telecommunications technology to benefit its residents.
Dr. Mitchell was a former Georgia Research Alliance Eminent Scholar. She has held executive level positions as a regulatory and policy official for the Federal Communications Commission and the U.S. Department of Commerce's National Telecommunications and Information Administration in Washington, D.C. She was the former Chief of the Emergency Broadcast System; creator of innovative programs and policies to increase telecommunications opportunities and expand dialogue with advanced technology companies; and developed partnerships both domestically and internationally. Dr. Mitchell has worked in senior management, in higher education, broadcasting and in the private sector in the U.S., Canada and the Caribbean.
For several decades she has authored policy, international and technology-based papers, delivered speeches, served in advisory roles and as a grants woman and recipient of funding to advance government, education and community-based initiatives. Under her leadership, her office was named Exemplary Organization of the Year at the FCC and she received the U.S. Dept. of Commerce Silver Medal for her technology policy work. Dr. Mitchell received her doctorate from Syracuse University in Telecommunications Policy.
Kenneth Peres is APT’s President and Research Economist for the Communications Workers of America. In relation to telecommunications, he has represented CWA in many proceedings before the New York Public Service Commission and the New Jersey Board of Public Utilities, worked on regulatory legislation, and conducted analyses of service quality performance. He has served as economist for the Northern Cheyenne Tribe, the Montana House Committee on Economic Development and the Montana Alliance for Progressive Policy. Mr. Peres has held teaching positions at the University of Montana, St. John’s University, Chief Dull Knife College and the City University of New York. He obtained a Ph.D. in economics from the Graduate Faculty of the New School for Social Research in New York City.
Adrienne Pon is Chief Executive Officer of Zeum at Yerba Buena Gardens, an arts, media and technology museum for young people and families. Zeum integrates digital technology, animation, filmmaking, visual and performing arts, storytelling and other forms of creative expression in a hands-on, interactive environment. Prior to joining Zeum in 2002, Pon served as Interim Executive Director of the Asian Law Caucus, a 30-year old civil rights organization, and previously as Founding Executive Director of the Community Technology Policy Council, a nonprofit organization focused on developing inclusive public policies around technology access for underserved communities. Pon was formerly Director of External Affairs for SBC (Pacific Telesis), where she worked closely with national and state community leaders on a number of public policy and consumer issues. Her more than 27 years in the private sector include managing a statewide local government affairs office and developing/funding projects focused on relevant and innovative uses of technology, such as Voice Mail for the Homeless, Women and Girls Tech Up! and the Asian American/Pacific Islanders Future Communities Project.
A strong believer in building networks to increase community access to resources, tools, training and decision-making, Pon has been active in numerous civic and community organizations for 30 years, cutting her nonprofit volunteer teeth with children’s rights and childcare advocacy organizations. Appointed to the San Francisco Civil Service Commission in 1993, she recently completed an unprecedented 10 years of service spanning two mayoral administrations, including four consecutive terms as president and two as vice-president. She currently serves on the Boards of the San Francisco League of Women Voters, the Asian Law Caucus, and the Community Technology Policy Council. She is past chair/director of The Women’s Foundation and previously served two consecutive terms as chair/trustee of the Asian Pacific American Women’s Leadership Institute and of Asian Americans/Pacific Islanders in Philanthropy. She previously served on the boards of: Northern California Grantmakers, Leadership California, the National Asian Pacific American Legal Consortium Corporate Council and the Girls Scouts U.S.A. National Nominating Committee. Pon is a 2000 recipient of the Jessie Bernard WISE Woman Award from the Center for Women’s Policy Studies in Washington, D.C. and the 1998 Big Heart Community Service Award from the Greenlining Institute. In 1992, she served on the San Francisco Mayor’s Advisory Committee for Proposition J, the Children’s Amendment.
Hilary O. Shelton is the Director of the Washington Bureau of the NAACP. Prior to that, he worked for The College Fund/UNCF. Mr. Shelton also serves on the board of the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights. Throughout his career, he has played a pivotal role in the crafting and passage of many pieces of legislation, including the Civil Rights Act of 1991. Mr. Shelton is also a tireless advocate of higher education, as well as quality in education.
Jenifer Simpson is the Senior Director, Telecommunications and Technology Policy, for the American Association of People with Disabilities (AAPD), a national, independent, cross-disability membership and advocacy organization located in Washington, D.C. She is responsible for advancing policy for people with disabilities in the areas of telecommunications and technology to ensure that all people with disabilities are able to make choices, have careers, live independently and contribute as full participants in all aspects of society.
Previously, Ms. Simpson was in federal government service, most recently as a Telecommunications Accessibility Specialist at the Federal Communications Commission. Her responsibilities included providing technical assistance to industry, consumers and the agency on disability-specific matters in electronic communication (telephony and television) for people with disabilities in addition to liaison with other federal agencies and programs on disability technology policy matters. Before that, she was an Employment Advisor at the President’s Committee on Employment of People with Disabilities. This high level federal agency communicated, coordinated and promoted public and private efforts to enhance the employment of people with disabilities. Her responsibilities included advising the Executive Director and Chairman on national technology policy issues as they pertained to employment and technology for people with disabilities and working internationally to advance accessibility of technology for people with disabilities.
Prior to government work, Ms. Simpson was at United Cerebral Palsy Associations in their national headquarters in Washington, D.C. as a Senior Policy Associate. She monitored and influenced legislation and regulations in the areas of technology, including telecommunications and income issues. Responsibilities included policy development for both Assistive and Information Technology and Telecommunications as well as programs of the Social Security Administration such as Supplemental Security Income (SSI), and the financing of technology for people with disabilities.
Ms. Simpson was the founding member and a five-year chairperson of the Consortium for Citizens with Disabilities (CCD) ‘Task Force on Communications Access and Telecommunications’ and was instrumental in ensuring inclusion of disability access safeguards (Section 255) in the Telecommunications Act of 1996. She was an active member of several other CCD groups, including the Technology, Civil Rights, Social Security, and Transportation task forces.
Karen Peltz Strauss has worked on legal and policy issues concerning the rights of people with disabilities for more than two decades. Ms. Peltz Strauss currently provides consulting services to companies, service providers, consumer groups, and research institutes on matters concerning telecommunications and technology access. She recently finished serving as the Powrie V. Doctor Chair of Deaf Studies at Gallaudet University. She is also the author of A New Civil Right: Telecommunications Equality for Deaf and Hard of Hearing Americans.
From 1999 to 2001, Ms. Peltz Strauss served as Deputy Bureau Chief of the Federal Communications Commission’s Consumer Information Bureau, where she managed the Commission’s consumer and disability access programs and policies. In that position, she oversaw the creation of the Commission’s first Disabilities Rights Office, as well as the release of numerous rules on telecommunications and television accessibility.
Before joining the FCC, Ms. Peltz Strauss spent many years spearheading national policy on matters concerning telecommunications access by individuals with disabilities. First as Supervising Attorney at Gallaudet University's National Center for Law and Deafness and then as both Legal Counsel for Telecommunications Policy for the National Association of the Deaf and Telecommunications Legislative Consultant for the Council of Organizational Representatives on National Issues Concerning People who are Deaf or Hard of Hearing, Ms. Peltz Strauss co-authored and guided efforts to achieve passage of several pieces of federal legislation. These included Sections 255 and 305 of the Telecommunications Act of 1996 (requiring telecommunications access and television captioning), Title IV of the Americans with Disabilities Act (mandating relay services), and the Hearing Aid Compatibility Act of 1988 (mandating hearing aid compatible telephones). Ms. Peltz Strauss has served numerous federal advisory committee appointments, including a Presidential appointment to the Federal Advisory Committee on the Public Interest Obligations of Digital Broadcasters and appointments to the Telecommunications Access Advisory Committee which developed the first Section 255 guidelines, and the Electronic and Information Technology Access Advisory Committee (alternate) which developed the first Section 508 guidelines. Ms. Peltz Strauss holds a JD from the University of Pennsylvania Law School and an LLM from the Georgetown University Law Center.
FOUNDING CHAIR
Dr. Barbara O’Connor is the Founding Chairperson of the Alliance for Public Technology. She currently serves as Professor of Communications and the Director of the Institute for the Study of Politics and Media at California State University, Sacramento. Dr. O’Connor was appointed by the California State Legislature as the chairperson of the State Education Technology Committee. She was also chair of the Pacific Telesis Intelligent Network Task Force Committee. In 1992, Dr. O’Connor was appointed to the Federal Communications Commission’s Network Reliability Council, the Congressional Office of Technology Assessment’s Study on International Networks, and the Bellcore Advisory Council.
OF COUNSEL
Henry Geller is the former director of the Washington Center for Public Policy. He has served as General Counsel of the Federal Communications Commission, Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Communications and Information Administration, and Administrator of the National Telecommunications and Information Administration. He recently retired as a communications fellow of the Markle Foundation and an adjunct professor at George Washington University. He remains of Counsel to the Alliance for Public Technology.
