[agm-nominations] RIPE NCC Executive Board Nomination by chapuis at ip-plus.net

Your full name: 
 Andre Chapuis

Your email address: 
 chapuis at ip-plus.net

Your organisation: 
 Swisscom (Schweiz) AG

Your LIR RegID: 
 ch.unisource

Name of the person you wish to nominate/support: 
 William Sylvester

Nominee's email address: 
 william.sylvester at addrex.net

Reason for nominating the candidate: 
 Billy has been working on RIR stuff since before there was an RIR system, building core pieces of Internet infrastructure when he worked at the InterNIC in the mid-90s. He worked on the creation of ARIN out of Network Solutions & the InterNIC. He also helped to create the Registry / Registrar model.

Billy has experience inside RIPE. He has done great work as the co-chair of the Database Working Group. Feel free to ask members in the community, he has pushed the WG forward and gotten through roadblocks that have existed for years. He also chaired the Accountability Task Force (post-IANA transition) which presented their findings last year. I do not know anyone who did not think Billy did a great job on a task that most people would have avoided. These show he has both the motivation and skills to work inside the RIPE bureaucracy and with the RIPE community to get things done where others could not.

Another point in his favor, “IMHO” RIPE board could use someone more involved with number-resource issues. Billy is clearly world-class in that arena. He helped to create the first real marketplace for address transfers when no one else was even thinking about it, ensuring the system worked within the existing RIR framework instead of breaking the whole system (which some have advocated). I literally could not think of anyone better suited for that role.

On a personal note, Billy is highly technical, from creating his own Unix distribution that fit on a HD floppy, to working on SunOS 1.1.2, had root on a.root-servers.net, and (biggest geek cred back in the day) his house had a T1 to MAE East. Billy is also a highly skilled executive, he runs the day-to-day at Addrex - the company would not be where it is today without his stewardship. This means he will be respected by the nerds in the community which gives him the credibility to push his ideas, while also having the chops to maneuver through RIPE’s convoluted processes and get things done.