Advisory Council
Role
The Advisory Council serves in an advisory capacity to the Board of Trustees on Internet number resource policy and related matters. Adhering to the procedures in the Policy Development Process, the Advisory Council forwards consensus-based policy proposals to the Board for ratification.
The Advisory Council consists of 15 elected members. The President of ARIN is an ex-officio member, and acts as the liaison between the Board of Trustees and the Advisory Council. Read the Election Guidelines for more information on how Council members are nominated and elected.
Current Members of the Advisory Council
Biographies
Doug is currently the Chief Information Technology Officer for Coordinated Care Services, Inc. (CCSI), a large mental and behavioral health services non-profit based in Rochester, NY. Prior to his work at CCSI, Doug spent nearly a decade as CIO of two counties in New York State, and ten years prior in various IT consulting leadership and implementation roles. With over 25 years in the industry, he has deep experience in both technical and non-technical sides of the business, and has extensive experience in policy, regulatory, and governance roles, including working with elected officials at the local, regional, and state levels. Doug is active in numerous community events and organizations, with 12 years of board service as Supervisory Committee Chair at Visions Federal Credit Union, one of the top 50 credit unions in the US, and he helped launch and build the LUMA Projection Arts Festival in Binghamton, NY, the largest outdoor projection-mapping art festival in the US. He was appointed to the AC for a one-year term to fill the vacancy of Robert Seastrom’s seat in 2023. His current term expires 31 December 2023.
Andrew Dul is currently an independent systems & networking infrastructure consultant at 8 Continents Networks LLC and has been working in various Internet networking positions since 1996. Over the years, he has held various positions including roles at network service provider Internap and working on the Internet in the sky at Connexion by Boeing. During his time at The Boeing Company, he helped develop the global network that supported mobile pico cell demonstrations and the first commercial in-flight Internet service. After Boeing, Andrew served the Seattle based nationwide law firm, Perkins Coie, as their Systems and Network Architect. He also was a Lead Engineer at Cascadeo from 2010-2013 and was a senior member of the Cloud Engineering team at Crowdstrike from 2016-2018. Andrew has been involved with ARIN since 1999 helping to contribute to the development of global IP number resource policy. Andrew holds a Bachelors of Science in Electrical Engineering from the University of California, Davis and a Masters in Business Administration with a Leadership Formation specialization from Seattle University, Albers School of Business and Economics. Andrew was appointed to the ARIN Advisory Council in November of 2013, re-elected in 2014, 2017, and 2020 and formerly served from 2003-2005. His current term expires 31 December 2023.
Gerry E. George is an ICT professional, with over 25 years in the industry. He has a BA in Economics, and a MS in Management Information Systems. Long an advocate of the benefits and adoption of ICT as an essential tool in business and for national development and in helping to bridge the digital divide in developing economies, he participates in local and regional policy fora aimed at Telecommunications liberalization, ICT Policy and Legislation and in the regulation of the Telecommunications sector, having been a Commissioner with the National Telecommunications Regulatory Commission (NTRC – Saint Lucia) since 2011. He serves as the President of the ICT Association of Saint Lucia (SLICTA), and is an active member of the Caribbean Network Operators Group (CaribNOG), Caribbean ICT stakeholders Virtual Community (CIVIC) a participant in activities of other international organizations such as ISOC, ICANN at Large Structure (ALS) and frequently participates in local, regional and international fora on telecommunications and ICT matters. He operates his own ICT Consultancy – DigiSolv, providing ICT solutions for business enterprises and has participated in or advised on a number of ICT technical committees and policy consultations. He is a frequent go-to by other members of the local ICT fraternity for advice and consultations. Gerry was elected to the AC in 2022. His current term expires 31 December 2025.
Kat Hunter has been an active member of the ARIN community since 2004. She manages the number resources for voice, video, and data for both the commercial and residential areas of Comcast. She also manages IPv4 recycling within the organization while new IPv6 space is deployed. Kat has a broad yet technical view of a large ISP down to end customers which gives her a unique view of the information and technical requirements needed to make inclusive decisions while working on policy. She also occasionally assists the business unit and security teams with IP fraud evaluations. Kat has also spent time as Communications Chair for TechWomen Philadelphia (2017) and is currently a member of TechWomen South Jersey and Net-grrls. Kat was elected to the AC in 2018, and re-elected in 2021. Her current term expires 31 December 2024.
Brian is currently Assistant Director of Operations for Virginia Tech, leading an Escalation team of IT subject matter experts. He is a Certified Scrum Professional, member of the ScrumAlliance, member of Mike Cohn’s Agile Mentors Community, and a certified IPv6 Engineer and member of the IPv6 Forum. He has worked in the higher education electronics and telecommunications industry since 1984, chasing electrons since 1979. He helped install Virginia Tech’s first 10Base-T hubs in 1991. He helped VT procure additional IPv4 address space to augment our legacy address blocks just before ARIN was completely depleted of IPv4 address space. He also helped VT procure IPv6 address space to replace old MAX blocks. He has served on other advisory councils for Network Monitoring software and served on the Board of Directors for the AHECTA organization. He has been active in the ARIN and NANOG community since 2007. He participated in the 2019 EDUCAUSE IPv6 panel along with other ARIN members to promote the use IPv6. He is the author of Virginia Tech’s IPv6 Case Study on the web site. Brian was elected in 2021 to serve a one-year term on the AC, and was re-elected in 2022. His current term expires 31 December 2025.
Kendrick Knowles is Principal Partner of Knowles Consulting Group in The Bahamas and serves in various private sector positions in either senior management or as technical consultant. He has held IT leadership positions in various industries from service provider, financial services, legal, insurance and retail management. Kendrick is skilled in ICT Network Design, Project Management, Risk Management, Troubleshooting, Public Speaking, and Virtualization. He is a qualified engineer with over a dozen professional level certifications including the PMP, CCNP and Security+ and holds a certificate in Management from Harvard Business School. He was elected to the AC in October 2022. His current term expires 31 December 2025.
Anita Nikolich is a Research Scientist at University of Illinois-Urbana Champaign. She was formerly a Program Director for Cybersecurity at the National Science Foundation (NSF), worked on scientific cyberinfrastructure and served as Executive Director of Infrastructure at The University of Chicago, and has held a variety of network and security roles in industry and government. She is a co-organizer of the DEFCON AI Village and also does work in cryptocurrency security and analytics. She was appointed by the AC in November 2019 to fill David Farmer’s vacancy for the remainder of his term and was re-elected in 2020. Her current term expires 31 December 2023.
Amy Potter is a Principal Technical Business Developer at AWS, focusing on IP address acquisition. Prior to this she spent several years working as an IPv4 broker where she worked with ISPs, hosting companies, datacenters and others to acquire IPv4 address space and navigate RIR transfer policies. Amy led the creation of in order to increase transparency and efficiency in the IPv4 market. Amy is interested in lending her expertise in the IPv4 market to help create policies that make sense in a post-IPv4 exhaustion world. Amy has a law degree from the University of Notre Dame, and a Bachelor’s degree from Santa Clara University. She was elected to the AC in October of 2015, and re-elected in 2018 and 2021. Her current term expires 31 December 2024.
Gus Reese is the Director for Edge Engineering for Cogent Communications Inc. He has been in this role for eight years. His current duties include managing all Cogent IP resources, point of contact for all five RIRs, managing a team of eight engineers who are responsible for all customer and peer transit connections and Cogent’s own global peering exchange. Prior to that he was a senior network engineer responsible for engineering solutions for customers to connect to each other and the rest of the Internet and helped deploy network wide role out of IPv6 in 2007. Gus started out in the Internet industry in 1998 working for a local dial-up provider in Fort Worth, Texas. Gus was elected to the AC in October of 2022. His term expires 31 December 2025.
Leif Sawyer is currently working as a network engineer at GCI Communication Corp., having been employed there for over 27 years. His areas of focus include IPv4 and IPv6 deployment strategy, network and security architecture, VOIP infrastructure, and network management automation. Previously, Leif has worked for the University of Alaska Anchorage and as an independent contractor in the telecommunications industry. He was elected to the AC in October of 2014, and re-elected in 2017 & 2020. His current term expires 31 December 2023.
Chris Tacit draws on over 41 years of experience in the communications, information technology and not-for-profit sectors, Chris is the founder of the firm Tacit Law, which provides legal and business advice to domestic and international clients who wish to obtain high-quality, personalized and cost-effective services. He provides legal, regulatory, and advocacy services related to all aspects of communication, Internet, technology and not-for-profit law and policy, and he assists clients with strategic planning, governance, risk management, business reviews, commercial transactions, intellectual property and privacy matters, as well as corporate and regulatory compliance. Chris is a: (1) member of the Bars of Ontario, British Columbia, Alberta, Northwest Territories and Nunavut; (2) registered Trade-mark agent in Canada; and (3) licensed professional engineer in Ontario. He has an Electrical Engineering degree from the University of Waterloo, as well as Bachelor of Laws and Master in Business Administration degrees from the University of Ottawa. Chris has significant experience as a director and officer of both for-profit and not-for profit corporations. He has published a number of articles and has taught at the post-secondary level. He was elected to the AC in October of 2014, and re-elected in 2017 & 2020. His current term expires 31 December 2023.
Alicia Trotman currently serves as a Communication Specialist with Mission Critical Partners. She has advanced expertise in telecommunications regulations with specific focus on small island developing states, and has over a decade of expertise in providing ICT development, regulatory and monitoring policies, and mechanisms to promote and maintain a competitive Telecommunications environment. Alicia was appointed by the Advisory Council to a one-year term beginning January 2018 to fill Dan Alexander’s open seat, and was re-elected in 2018 and 2021. Her current term expires 31 December 2024.
Matthew Wilder is a Senior Engineer with TELUS Communications, a leading ISP and technology company headquartered in Vancouver, Canada. At TELUS Matthew is responsible for IP Address Management and IPv6 strategy. Matthew serves the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) as past Chair of the Vancouver Section. He has written articles for IEEE Canadian Review, as well as blogs for ARIN, ISOC, and other industry publications. Matthew holds a Bachelor of Applied Sciences from the University of British Columbia as well as a Master of Business Administration from the University of Victoria. Matthew was elected to the AC in October of 2020. His current term expires 31 December 2023.
Alison is a network engineer for the state of Oregon, focusing on a diverse wide area network that serves over 40,000 customers. She has been in this role for almost 25 years and has truly enjoyed watching the evolution of the state’s network from a disjointed mesh of dial-up to a mature and diverse enterprise. Her duties include network architecture and design, dynamic network analytics, pre-deployment application testing, and the broad duty of keeping the network up, fast and available. She also serves on the Advisory Council for the INTC and is on the board for the Oregon Track Club. Alison was elected to the AC in October of 2016, and was re-elected in 2019 and 2022. Her current term expires 31 December 2025.
Chris Woodfield is a Network Engineer at DriveNets, Inc., where he specializes in backbone and edge network architecture. Prior to joining DriveNets, he served in architecture and engineering roles at Twitter, Salesforce.com, and other companies. In addition to serving on the Advisory Council, Chris has been a member of the North American Network Operators’ Group (NANOG) Program Committee since early 2016. Chris was elected to the Advisory Council in October 2016 for a one-year term, followed by a three-year term in 2017, and elected back to the AC in 2021 after a one-year hiatus. His current term expires 31 December 2024.