All About IEEE 802 Standards Subject Matter Expert Biographies

John Barr is Director of Standards Realization for Motorola Corporate Offices, and has been with Motorola for 23 years. In his present role, he is responsible for directing service delivery and wireless consumer multimedia standards efforts within Motorola and strategic relationships with consortia (e.g., Bluetooth® SIG, OSGi Alliance and Home Gateway Initiative) and standards development groups (e.g., IEEE) to ensure that Motorola incorporates technologies that fundamentally change the way people communicate and interact while mobile, at home, and in their vehicles. Dr. Barr has a Ph.D. from UCLA and previously was a staff engineer at Hughes   Aircraft and a Professor of Computer Science at the University of Montana.

Dr. Barr is currently the Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Bluetooth SIG, a member of the IEEE Communications Society Standards Board, Past President and board member of the OSGi Alliance, treasurer of the IEEE 802.15 Working Group, and Fellow of the Technical Staff at Motorola.

Roger B. Marks initiated, in 1998, the effort leading to the formation of the IEEE 802.16 Working Group on Broadband Wireless Access, which develops the IEEE 802.16 WirelessMAN standard underlying the certification activities of the WiMAX Forum. He has chaired the group since its inception, served as Technical Editor of three of the group's completed standards projects, and forged its successful globalization activities. He also serves actively on the IEEE 802 Executive Committee and has become active in ITU-R.

Dr. Marks is Senior Vice President with NextWave Broadband Inc., whose Advanced Technology Group is located in Del Mar, CA. From 1989-2006, he was a physicist with the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) in Boulder, Colorado, USA.

Dr. Marks earned his A.B. in Physics from Princeton University and his Ph.D. in Applied Physics from Yale University. He is the author or co-author of over 90 publications, including the book "WirelessMAN: Inside the IEEE 802.16 Standard for Wireless Metropolitan Area Networks" published by IEEE Press in 2006. His awards include the Morris E. Leeds Award in Electrical Measurement (an IEEE Technical Field Award) and the 2006 IEEE-SA International Award. He developed the IEEE Radio and Wireless Conference and chaired it from 1996 through 1999. He served as an IEEE Distinguished Lecturer for seven years and is an IEEE Fellow.

Paul Nikolich is active in standards bodies such as IEEE, SCTE, DOCSIS, and plays a leadership role in the IEEE by serving as chairman of the IEEE 802 LAN/MAN Standards Executive Committee. His IEEE Activities include: 2001-05; Vice-Chairman, IEEE 802 LAN/MAN Standards Executive Committee, 1996-2001; Member, IEEE Standards Association Standards Board, 2003-05; Member, IEEE SASB New Standards Committee (NesCom), 2001-05; Member, IEEE LAN/MAN Standards Committee 802.3 Working Group, 1989-2001. Chairman or Vice Chairman of IEEE 802 Plenary Sessions, 1996-2005.

Paul Nikolich currently is a consultant working closely with YAS Broadband Ventures, LLC as the chief strategy officer in the technology, standards, intellectual property, and venture investing fields. He co-founded Broadband Access Systems, Inc. in February 1998 where he was vice president of technology and standards. The BAS team invented and produced carrier-class next generation cable modem termination systems. BAS merged with ADC in September 2000. Prior to co-founding BAS, Mr. Nikolich was a co-founder and vice president of engineering at Sarnoff Digital Communications in September 1996, a company specializing in developing high performance modems for digital video (SDTV and HDTV) and high-speed data systems.

Al Petrick, is a wireless marketing and systems engineering consult in the Wi-Fi industry for Jones-Petrick and Associates, LLC, located in Orlando, Florida.

Mr. Petrick has over 25 years of wireless communications and semiconductor technology experience and has held positions in marketing, business development and systems engineering. He currently serves as Vice-Chairman of the IEEE 802.11 working group. He is a member of several technical advisory boards for leading wireless semiconductor and product companies in the Wireless LAN industry.

Prior to joining Jones-Petrick and Associates, Petrick was Vice President of Business Development and Marketing for WiDeFi and IceFyre Semiconductor. He held senior executive management positions at Intersil Corporation (now Conexant), a leading provider of silicon technology for Wi-Fi® 802.11 Networks. While at Intersil, he was responsible for strategic marketing and business development, and conceived and spearheaded the development of the 802.11 wireless LAN product line.

Petrick is a distinguished writer in the wireless industry and co-authored a “Best Selling” textbook on the IEEE 802.11 wireless LAN standard titled: “IEEE 802.11 Handbook, A Designer’s Companion” published by IEEE. He holds a BSEE from Rochester Institute of Technology, Rochester, New York, and a MBA from Rollins College, Winter Park, Florida.

Donald E. Purcell is a co-founder of The Center for Global Standards Analysis (“Center”), located in Washington, DC, and has served as Chairman since 2001.  The Center is a “think tank” of international experts on the development of global technology standards.  As the Center’s Chairman, he is responsible for the Center’s strategic planning initiatives, helping to facilitate development of standards education courses, supervising research programs conducted by the Center and representing the Center in policy projects.  He is the editor of two major research reports for the Center: A Standards Education Survey [of global standards practitioners] (March 2003), and A Report on Standards Education [for the top 100 schools of engineering in the United States] (April 2004).   Mr. Purcell is author of numerous articles concerning the strategic value of standards education and the development of global technology standards.          

Mr. Purcell is an adjunct faculty member at the Catholic University Columbus School of Law for Cyber Law an adjunct faculty member at the School of Engineering for Strategic Standardization.  He is a partner in the law firm of Purcell & Fox.

Mr. Purcell is a former In-house Counsel for the Outdoor Power Equipment Institute, and trial attorney for the U.S. Federal Trade Commission.

He is a graduate of the Catholic University Columbus School of Law (JD 1972) and the University of Maryland (BA 1969).

Fanny Mlinarsky is President at octoScope (www.octoscope.com), a Boston area consulting firm working with technology companies on RF and wireless product and system architecture, performance analysis and test.   In 2001 she founded Azimuth Systems, the leading provider of Wi-Fi test equipment, and served as the company's CTO for five years.  She spent over 24 years in senior R&D positions developing datacom and network test products with companies including Hewlett Packard, Agilent, Teradyne and Concord Communications.  Fanny is active in the development of industry standards and is the founder of IEEE 802.11T committee defining test metrics and methods. Fanny holds BS/EE and BA/CS from Columbia University and has been awarded 4 patents.