Board of Directors
Richard Shockey – SIP Forum Chairman of the Board – Shockey Consulting
Richard Shockey is an internationally recognized expert on Data Communications, Voice over IP Technology, Numbering and Signaling, and is currently the Principal of Shockey Consulting, a private firm advising telecommunications companies, national regulatory authorities and the investment community on any number of issues related to Next Generation Real Time Communications products and services. Mr. Shockey also currently serves as Chairman of the Board of Directors of the SIP Forum.
Mr. Shockey has been a member of the United States Federal Communications Commission’s Communications Security, Reliability and Interoperability Council (CSRIC), an FCC advisory council tasked with advising the federal agency regarding best practices and practical actions pertaining to the security, reliability, and interoperability of communications systems.
Mr Shockey has been recently reappointed a member of the Federal Communications Commission North American Numbering Council [NANC]. The NANC is the US governments principal technical advisory committee on issues surrounding the use of telephone numbers and telephone number related issues in the United States.
Mr. Shockey was a founder and Co-Chair of the Internet Engineering Task Force ENUM Work Group and is an author of several IETF RFC’s Active in IETF affairs since 1998 he also participated in numerous other WG including FAX, SIP, SIPPING, SPEERMINT, SIMPLE, and its management nominating committee NOMCOM.
Mr. Shockey was formerly Director & Distinguished Member of the Technical Staff at NeuStar, Inc. based in Suburban Washington, D.C.
John Ayers
John has enjoyed a 25-year career working with companies to advance emerging technologies and disruptive product strategies in ways that solve problems for businesses and consumers.
Focused on start-up and early stage companies mainly with service offerings geared for carriers and their subscribers, he has maximized the opportunity to develop expertise in a variety of key roles. As a result, he has a broad perspective of the commercial, technological and legal/regulatory challenges and opportunities presented by new technology offerings.
John applied all this experience in his role at First Orion, a leading “analytics engine” and STIR/SHAKEN provider also well known for it’s burgeoning Branded Calling offering. During his six years with the company, he led the company’s extensive activity with the FCC, FTC and key organizations such as the SIP Forum, USTelecom and CTIA. He has also been active with both call originators directly and with their member organizations in an effort to ensure the entire ecosystem works cooperatively, rather than contentiously, in the effort to get consumers to answer their phones again. His active role in First Orion’s commercial efforts with carriers and enterprises also provided additional critical insights into the possibilities and realities we all face.
Keith Buell – Numeracle
In Keith’s professional career, he has worked on robocall policy from a variety of perspectives. As assistant general counsel at Verizon, Keith was a litigator on various telecom fraud cases involving the company, including an auto dialer case where the opposing party sequentially dialed every 8YY number in the country. At Sprint (and subsequently T-Mobile after the merger), he was the lead regulatory attorney on robocall policy and worked with his counterparts at the other carriers, as well as with the Federal Communications Commission, trade associations, and the SIP Forum.
He also worked at a major international gateway provider on robocall policy, gaining useful insights into international battles against robocalls as well as the ins and outs of international IP call routing and technologies. Keith’s work at the Federal Communications Commission in 2022-2023 focused on numbering issues, including number rotation, number assignment, and number exhaust.
Keith now serves as general counsel and head of global public policy at Numeracle with a focused mission on implementing robust Know Your Customer polices and embedding identity information into electronic communications so the recipient knows with certainty who is contacting them.
Mary Barnes – TransUnion
Mary Barnes is a Senior Product Manager for TransUnion’s STI-CA deployed in the US and Canada and the STI-PA deployed in Canada . Mary has been involved in system architecture and product development for real-time communication systems for over 25 years, focusing for the past 20 years on IP communications and standards development. She has been an active contributor and document editor for the ATIS/SIP Forum IPNNI task group, serving as editor of ATIS-1000080 (Certificate Management) and ATIS-1000084 (Operational Considerations for the Certificate Management and Policy Administrator).
She is an active contributor to the IETF. She is the author of RFCs/specifications relating to the Session Initiation Protocol (SIP), Centralized Conferencing, NAT/Firewall traversal, Geographic Location Delivery, Telepresence, Automated Certificate Management (ACME) and Secure Telephone Identity Revisited (STIR). She is a past board member of the Internet Architecture Board (IAB) and past chair of the DISPATCH WG, IETF CLUE (telepresence) WG and the SIPPING WG. Mary also served as the Vice-chair of the Technical WG in the Unified Communications Interoperability Forum (UCIF) (since merged with the IMTC who has since merged with MEF).
Prior to TransUnion, Mary worked for iconectiv and served as the PMA Director for the US STI-PA and was a primary author of the US Certificate Policy version 1.0. Prior to iconectiv, Mary worked as a consultant for a broad range of organizations including a startup, Comcast and the UK government. Prior to setting up her consultancy, her experience included a position as Principal Engineer in the Video Solutions Group at Polycom and various positions at Nortel. Her final role was as Senior Advisor for Nortel, leading the IETF standards strategy for the Carrier VoIP and Application Solutions business unit (now Genband). She was also a senior manager/advisor for Nortel’s 3G IP research, participating in industry standards forums and prototyping a mobile IP based system. She is the inventor of several patents related to this work. She also designed and developed real-time software for Nortel’s DMS-based GSM and Enterprise products. Prior to her 22 years at Nortel, Mary developed real-time embedded software for GPS and video reconnaissance systems for Texas Instruments. Mary has a BS in Computer Science with a minor in Nuclear Engineering from the University of Virginia in Charlottesville, Virginia.
George Cray – GCH Technologies Inc.
George is the Chief Executive Officer and co-founder of GCH Technologies. GCH was established to deliver innovative and transformative solutions to the telecommunications industry. Leveraging the founders extensive experience in wireless and messaging, GCH serves as a neutral party dedicated to advancing the wireless ecosystem.
George began his career at Bell Atlantic (now Verizon) and has over 30 years of experience providing product, sales and service solution strategies to telecom network management firms and top tier service providers. George had expanded roles starting in systems engineering and growing to lead global product line management, sales and marketing organizations over his career. He previously held leadership roles at Bellcore/Telcordia, since purchased by Ericsson, JDS Uniphase (now Viavi Systems), and iconectiv.
George holds a Bachelor of Engineering from Stevens Institute of Technology and his Master of Business Administration in Finance from Rutgers University.
Martin Dolly – AT&T
Martin Dolly is an AT&T Lead Member of Technical Staff, currently assigned to the Core & Government/Regulatory Standards organization. Martin has been with AT&T Bell Laboratories/AT&T Labs for 37 years, where his areas of expertise include security, signaling, and services, particularly Government Priority Services.
As a Technical Consultant in the Strategic Standards Division, Martin’s focus is on the development of necessary standards for LTE/IMS deployments, Security and Identity Management, IP carrier interconnection, IP-GETS/WPS, Public Safety, signaling control protocols, and IP Network Management controls. In this capacity, Martin represents AT&T’s interests on IP signaling, security and services issues in telecommunications standards bodies such as the Packet Technologies and Systems Committee of Service Committee (PTSC) of the Alliance for Telecommunications Industry Solutions (ATIS), Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF), NPSTC QoS and Security WG, 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) CT Protocol and SA3 Security groups, as well as Study Groups in the Telecommunication Standardization Sector of the International Telecommunications Union (ITU-T). In addition, Martin contributes to various government Cybersecurity activities, FCC TAC & CSRIC Cybersecurity, DHS/NCS NGN GETS Security, CTIA Cybersecurity WG, and DISA LTE Security Profile.
Martin was hired into AT&T Bell Laboratory on July 8th, 1985, at AT&T Microelectronics he was part of team that developed a radiation hardened Integrated Circuit for the US Navy. In the early 1990, Martin transferred from AT&T Microelectronics to AT&T communications in Holmdel, where he worked on SS7 protocol and standards. In this role, he was a major contributor to SS7 Network to Network Interconnection (NNI) effort in support of IS 41 & GSM MAP, 8YY, Calling Card, Operator Services and voice.
Martin has contributed to many of AT&T’s SIP deployments since 2000. He is co-author of 5 IETF RFCs and contributed to many others. He contributed to and lead efforts on ISUP to SIP interworking including those in 3GPP, i3 Forum, ITU and ATIS.
Currently Martin is a driving force behind IP Interconnection, co-chair of the ATIS-SIP Forum NNI Task Force where is also the editor and major contributor to the IP NNI Profile standard and . Martin is currently co-chair of the FCC Strike Force on Robo-calling, where he is a major contributor, as well as leader.
Philip Linse – Lumen
Philip Linse, Director of Public Policy represents Lumen in various industry standards forums such as INC, SNAC, NGIIF, PTSC, IPNNI and as Co-chair of the FCC’s North American Numbering Council’s Contract Oversight Subcommittee as well as providing Lumen with policy consult on the technology transformation as the result of the ongoing transition to IP technology.
Mr. Linse’s background spans over 20 years in telecommunications consisting of, intercarrier and vendor contract negotiations, economic analysis and modeling, OSP engineering, and subject matter expert on network issues associated with interconnection, switching, signaling, and signaling databases. Philip currently serves on the board of directors with the Telecommunications History Group LLC. He also holds a Bachelors degree from the University of Northern Iowa.
In previous roles with CenturyLink (formerly Qwest), Philip represented Qwest in regulatory hearings, intercarrier contract negotiations, industry standards groups, and FCC NRIC focus groups as a subject matter expert on network issues associated with interconnection, switching, signaling, and signaling databases.
Philip also developed network strategies and policies that directed the unbundling of Qwest’s networks pursuant to the Telecommunications Act of 1996. Philip began his career as an Outside Plant contract drafter in Montana and Loop Technology Planning Engineer for Pacific Bell in California.
Christopher Oatway – Verizon
Chris Oatway is Associate General Counsel at Verizon with responsibility for cybersecurity policy as well as his company’s robocall mitigation project of restoring trust in voice communications. Prior to Verizon, Chris was an antitrust litigator at Covington & Burling in Washington, DC, and his early legal career included stints at major law firms in Brussels and Mexico City.
Before attending law school, he worked as an economic consultant, providing antitrust analysis for litigation purposes and to risk arbitrageurs. Chris has extensive experience with the legal, regulatory, and policy issues associated with robocall mitigation, the Telephone Consumer Protection Act, and the Truth in Caller ID Act.
He is a board member of the Secure Telephone Identity Governance Authority and is a member of the Industry Traceback Group advisory committee.
Greg Rogers – Bandwidth Inc.
Greg is Head of Global Policy and Regulatory Affairs for Bandwidth Inc. in Bandwidth’s office in Denver, CO. Greg is primarily responsible for Bandwidth’s wide array of regulatory and public policy matters at all levels of government both domestically and internationally. Bandwidth is a multi-faceted communications service provider that operates a nation-wide all IP-based network in the U.S. from its headquarters in Raleigh, NC.
Bandwidth.com CLEC, LLC. is a Bandwidth affiliate that operates a CLEC with a local PSTN interconnection and NANP footprint that spans the 48 continental states. Bandwidth’s CLEC network is a critical component of its full suite of VoIP and SMS/MMS service offerings. Bandwidth also operates a nation-wide 911 VPC network aimed at supporting emergency calling for IP-enabled services. As a wholesale provider, Bandwidth is also one of the largest Toll Free Resporgs in the country.
Greg has been at Bandwidth since 2010. Prior to joining Bandwidth, he was Senior Corporate Counsel for Level 3 Communications for over a decade. Greg is a graduate of the University of Colorado School of Law in Boulder, CO.
Harold Salters – CTIA
Harold Salters has been a regular participant on the Joint ATIS/SIP Forum IP-NNI Task Force since November 2016 in his role as a consultant for CTIA — Everything Wireless. He is extremely well-versed on STIR/SHAKEN and the special insights that the wireless sector brings to deployment and the need for ecosystem integration, where the SIP Forum plays such a vital role.
Prior to his consulting engagement, Mr. Salters was T-Mobile’s Director of Federal Regulatory Affairs for 14 years working on a broad range of wireless technical public policy issues, including cybersecurity, homeland security, network reliability/survivability and disabilities access. In those roles, Mr. Salters represented T-Mobile at DHS’s National Cybersecurity & Communications Integration Center, the FCC’s Communications Security, Reliability & Interoperability Council, and ATIS’s Network Reliability Steering Committee and Interim Non-Voice Emergency Services Incubator.
Prior to that, Mr. Salters was Sr. Director for Government Relations at PCIA, predecessor to the Wireless Infrastructure Association (WIA), and worked at two DC law firms and the FCC on private land mobile and microwave issues. At the FCC, Mr. Salters was a charter member of the Future Public Safety Telecommunications Requirements Task Force. Mr. Salters is a graduate of Queens College (CUNY) and has an MBA from Cornell University.
Steve Tang – iconectiv
Steve Tang is Executive Vice President, Chief Technology Officer and Head of Engineering for iconectiv. He is responsible for all software development, project management for engineering teams and supporting business partners with emerging technologies.
Steve is a seasoned software engineer and professional with more than 20 years of experience developing highly scalable, robust products that enable the seamless interconnection of devices, applications and networks globally. With an enthusiastic commitment to customer satisfaction, quality and efficiency, he has consistently met company business, strategic and financial objectives. He previously held positions at leading telecommunications companies, including Motorola.
Steve holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Computer Science from Rutgers University.
Chris Wendt – Somos
Chris Wendt is the VP of System Engineering at Somos, Inc., a leading registry management and data solutions company. He is co-author of many relevant specifications related to STIR/SHAKEN in both IETF and the ATIS/SIP Forum IPNNI Joint Task Force. As a member and co-chair of the STI-GA Technical Committee, he helped establish the trust anchor for the US STI-GA, the authority for signing telephone calls in the US telephone eco-system.
A pioneer in the real-time communications space and an expert in VoIP/SIP protocols and technologies, Chris led the architecture of Comcast’s IMS-based voice infrastructure (supporting over 25 million subscribers) and led the development and deployment of a cloud-based CPaaS/UCaaS solution utilizing webrtc based voice/video communications and messaging technologies.
Chris is currently a co-chair of the ATIS/SIP Forum IP-NNI Joint Task Force, co-chair of the STI-GA Technical Committee and active in many telecom standards bodies. He holds a BS in Music, and a BSEE, and MSEE from Drexel University in Philadelphia.
Clark Whitten – Cox Communications
Clark Whitten is Principal Engineer with Cox, where he is responsible for solution architectures, service infrastructure core specifications, and CPE specifications supporting Cox’s residential and business voice services. With over 20 years of experience, Clark previously held positions as a Sales Engineer, Systems Engineer, System Integrator, Tester, Designer, Project Manager (former PMP), and Architect.
Clark has worked with two start-ups that were acquired by larger organizations; Media4, a data-over-satellite company, was acquired by EchoStar; and Future Network, a voice and data CPE design and development company, which was acquired by Tellabs. Clark has been with Cox for 15 years in various roles, initially supporting integration of MGCP/NCS for Cox’s initial deployment of PacketCable 1.0 & 2.0 voice over cable services. Clark has also supported Cox’s venture into LTE mobility, SIP peering, and many other SIP-based solutions. Clark has been awarded several patents for voice and non-voice related technologies.
Richard Wikoff – Comcast
Richard is a Principal Engineer at Comcast, where he drives efforts to deploy new features and improve network efficiency in Comcast’s Communications Solutions group, working extensively on voice features. Richard serves as an Alternate to the FCC Disability Advisory Committee, contributing on communication-related efforts such as conferencing and real-time text (RTT). He has 12 years of experience at Comcast and holds 2 patents in SIP session routing, with other applications in process.
Prior to Comcast, Richard wrote specifications at Sonus (now Ribbon Communications) for SIP features in support of the worldwide client base. Richard contributed to PacketCable Business Services specifications.
Prior to Sonus, Richard helped architect a carrier-grade VoIP switch at Telcordia and led coding teams on both network and provisioning systems.