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Microsoft Shuffles Staff, Sun Fills Posts
by Bara Vaida
Microsoft has promoted government affairs manager Mark Berejka and hired Susan Mann as a new lobbyist.
Berejka has taken the position of senior federal government affairs manager and is now in charge of Microsoft's Washington policy shop. He replaces Eric Koenig, who retired in the spring of 2001 to spend more time with his family. Berejka joined Microsoft in 1997 and before that was an attorney with Squier Sanders & Dempsey, where he focused on telecommunications issues.
Mann will replace Berejka and will focus on intellectual property issues. Previously, she was a legislative consultant at the lobbying group Griffin, Johnson, Dover & Stewart, where she was an international copyright adviser to an entertainment industry trade association. Before that, she headed the office of legislative and international affairs at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.
Microsoft continues to seek a replacement for its House Democratic lobbyist, Tom Jurkovich, who left at the end of 2001.
In other company news, Sun Microsystems has created the new position of chief security officer and named the company's security expert, Whitfield Diffie, to the position. Diffie is the inventor of public key encryption, the concept that underlies secure e-commerce. Sun also created the position of director in its global security program office and named Joanne Masters to the job.
In their new jobs, Diffie and Masters will advocate Sun's security products and educate customers on key security issues, expand Sun's relationship with key security organizations, and anticipate and address future customer-security requirements across Sun's research and development, product assessments, marketing and sales.
SIIA Taps Bigchalk Executive For Education Post
The Software and Information Industry Association has named Karen Billings as vice president of its education division, where she will work on issues facing education software companies.
Previously, Billings was vice president of major business initiatives at bigchalk.com, an education network, and before that, she was CEO at MediaSeek Technologies, which was bought by bigchalk. Billings also worked at Microsoft, managing the company's strategic relations on elementary and secondary education. In addition, she taught technology courses for 12 years.
In other industry news, Marguerite Wilbur has been promoted to president and CEO of Joint Venture: Silicon Valley, which focuses on quality-of-life and workforce issues in the region. The organization also has named Peter Giles, president of the Tech Museum in San Jose, as a new board member. Wilbur has served as chief operating officer of Joint Venture since March 2001, when previous President Ruben Barrales left to join the Bush administration. Before that, she was executive director of the Silicon Valley Civic Action Network, a Joint Venture initiative.
The Joint Venture group also has named four tech executives to develop a report on the next wave of innovation in the region and the policy implications. The report will be called "Next Silicon Valley Initiative" and will be led by: BEA Systems Chairman Bill Coleman; Borland CEO Dale Fuller; Debra Engel, 3Com's former senior vice president of operations; and Judy Heyboar, Genentech's former senior vice president.
Lobbyists Begin New Quest With Qwest
Jack Martin and Scott Hatch, who were 10-year veterans of the lobbying firm Parry, Romani, DeConcini & Symms, have left to form their own firm, Influence Online reported. They teamed up with former Qwest Communications International lobbyist Laird Walker to form Walker, Martin & Hatch.
"Romano [Romani] is one of my best friends," Martin told Influence.
Martin is a Food and Drug Administration (FDA) specialist who spent seven years on the FDA's policy board. Hatch is the middle son of Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah. Launched last month, the firm already has a half-dozen clients, including GlaxoSmithKline, the National Nutritional Foods Association and Qwest.
SEC, FCC Announce Staff Changes
The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has selected Martin Dunn to serve as deputy director of the division of corporation finance. In that job, Dunn will assist division Director Alan Beller in implementing the SEC's modernization of financial disclosure and disclosure-review systems. Dunn has been at the division as an attorney since 1988 and most recently was associate director.
Elsewhere on the agency front, Marlene Dortch has been named secretary of the FCC. She previously was acting director of the Office of Communications Business Opportunities. Before that, she was chief of the equal employment opportunity staff in the FCC's Mass Media Bureau and an attorney-adviser in the television branch of the bureau's video-services division.
TechNet To Pass The Fundraising Hat
The lobbying group TechNet has several fundraising events scheduled in the next month, including a breakfast for Californian Susan Davis, one of only a handful of House Democrats to vote for presidential trade-negotiating authority last December.
The April 29 breakfast will be held in Stanford in the heart of Silicon Valley, though Davis represents a portion of San Diego. The trade bill, H.R. 3005, was a top priority for the high-tech sector last year, and none of the representatives in the Silicon Valley region voted for it.
Also in California, TechNet will be a part of a fundraising lunch for Republican gubernatorial candidate Bill Simon on April 30, and President Bush is expected to be a special guest. Sticking to its bipartisan roots, TechNet will co-host a May 23 fundraiser for Democratic Gov. Gray Davis in San Jose.
TechNet also is scheduled to host a May 28 fundraiser for the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, and Senate Majority Leader Thomas Daschle, D-Calif., is expected to attend. If the Senate voting calendar goes as Daschle plans, the Senate will have just passed the trade-negotiating measure by the time of the fundraiser.
On May 15, meanwhile, there will be a fundraiser for Rep. Anna Eshoo, D-Calif. at the home of Cindy Rubin and Brian Rosenthal in Los Altos, Calif.
House Women To Talk Tech
In a separate, non-campaign-related event, several House lawmakers are scheduled to speak at a reception Tuesday evening hosted by the Women's High-Tech Coalition. The roster of speakers includes: Minority Whip Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif.; two of her fellow California Democrats, Zoe Lofgren and Susan Davis; Deborah Pryce, R-Ohio; Marge Roukema, R-N.J.; and Joe Ann Emerson, R-Mo.
The group is celebrating its one-year anniversary and will announce high-tech issues -- such as the expensing of stock options, intellectual property and privacy -- that it plans to examine in the coming year.
Kids Get Awards For Cyber Awareness
White House Homeland Security Director Tom Ridge, White House Office of Cyber-Security Director Richard Clarke and members of the System Administration Networking and Security Institute (SANS) were on hand at the White House last Thursday to honor six children who created posters to advertise a joint industry-government effort called "Stay Safe Online."
The initiative, organized by the National Cyber Security Alliance, is aimed at getting consumers to update their home computers with the latest security products. The FBI and SANS Institute sponsored the poster contest for students between third and eighth grades.
"A new generation of computer-literate kids need to develop habits to 'stay safe online,'" SANS Institute Director Alan Paller said of the poster contest.
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