The Fibre Channel Industry Association (FCIA) said it has named three new board members: Marc Oswald of Brocade Systems Communications, Mark Hamel of Compaq, and Michael Hoard of IBM.
They join nine other FCIA board members for the 2001 fiscal year to promote and support the rapid advancement of Fibre Channel in the technology industry, officials said.
“The industry experience and knowledge these new members bring to FCIA’s board of directors will prove to be invaluable in the promotion of Fibre Channel technology. As we move forward in the upcoming year, we look forward to providing new services and additional benefits to our members. We feel that these three gentlemen will help the FCIA meet these goals by bringing to the table an understanding of what the industry wants and demands,” said Skip Jones, FCIA chairman.
As an FCIA board member, Marc Oswald will support the FCIA’s mission of promoting the acceptance, implementation and rapid advancement of Fibre Channel technology and applications in the market place. With Brocade since 1997, Oswald serves as the company’s director of technology alliances. Oswald created Brocade’s overall partnering strategy, which builds on the concept of total Storage Area Network (SAN) solutions. In addition, he built the foundation for Brocade’s various partner programs and secured alliances with leading industry players. With over 15 years of industry experience, Oswald previously worked with companies such as Digital Equipment and Lotus Development, where he drove customer adoption of client-server technologies, middleware and network applications and services.
In his capacity as a board member, Michael Hoard is helping lead the FCIA SANmark Qualified Program. The SANmark Program was established to provide the industry with an objective indication of how Fibre Channel products perform against reasonable standards. The program permits the use of the trademarked term “SANmark,” and any associated logo(s) in the identification and promotion of products meeting the published test indices. Hoard will continue to drive broad collaboration among FCIA members and bring system integrator perspective, communicating the value of Fibre Channel technology and solutions. Currently, Hoard serves on the senior engineering staff at IBM, where he is a consulting architect among IBM storage networking teams. He provides principal contributions in defining common direction, SAN best practices and supplier requirements.
Mark Hamel serves on the FCIA SANmark committee and will contribute to the FCIA’s mission of promoting the acceptance and implementation of Fibre Channel technology and applications. As a 20-year veteran in the computer-storage industry, Hamel is currently in the enterprise storage group, advanced technology at Compaq, working exclusively on Fibre Channel development an new product introductions. Prior to joining Compaq, Hamel spent 12 years at Data General and five years at EMC.
The Fibre Channel Industry Association (FCIA) is an international organization of manufacturers, systems integrators, developers, systems vendors, industry professionals, and end users. With more than 190 members and affiliates in the United States, Europe and Japan, the FCIA is committed to delivering a broad base of Fibre Channel infrastructure to support a wide array of industry applications within the mass storage and IT-based arenas. FCIA Working Groups focus on specific aspects of the technology that target both vertical and horizontal markets, including storage, video, networking and SAN Management.
