MCNC announced the retirement of Vice President of NCREN Community Support John Killebrew as well as appointments to executive positions at MCNC including the promotion of Tommy Jacobson to Chief Operating Officer. Killebrew's retirement will lead to several executive moves within MCNC. Tommy Jacobson has been promoted to the newly-created role of Chief Operating Officer (COO). Jacobson will report directly to the CEO and continue to have overall operational responsibility for the continued operation and expansion of NCREN as well as assuming responsibility for network operations, constituent support, and overall service delivery for MCNC. Todd Broucksou has been promoted to Senior Director of Constituent Support and System Operations. After serving as Director of Operations at MCNC for the last six years, Broucksou will assume responsibility for managing business relationships for all customer verticals and the community support staff members that work in those verticals. This will include responsibility for key business executive contacts at UNC General Administration, North Carolina Community College System, N.C. Department of Public Instruction, and N.C. Information Technology Services (ITS). In addition, he will continue to manage the MCNC Data Center as well as the overall operation of systems-related services. David Warden is now Senior Director of Fiber Business Development and Plant Management. He has more than 20 years of experience working with commercial service providers overseeing fiber-optic business development and fiber builds. Warden will assume responsibility for managing all opportunities relating to fiber infrastructure business, including working with GLRBI Round 1 matching partner FRC and MCNC fiber marketing firm ECC Technologies. He also will take the lead role in helping to market the newly-constructed BTOP fiber on NCREN to carriers interested in building out their networks in rural North Carolina as well as have direct oversight on all fiber-related maintenance issues. Jeremy Buenviaje is being promoted to Senior Manager of Network Operations and Customer Fulfillment. His responsibilities will include the day-to-day operation and management of MCNC's Network Operations Center, ensuring all elements of the network are operating appropriately and that customer needs and requests are being met and delivered on time. Also within this department, Pam Pruitt, a 25-year veteran at MCNC, is being promoted to Fulfillment Specialist, and will coordinate service provisioning efforts among Community Support, Engineering, Operations, and Accounting. Matt Valenzisi is being promoted to Chief Architect and NCREN Senior Technical Manager of Network Management. He has 15 years of experience in network design and architecture in the higher education space and now will oversee all network architecture and planning on NCREN, ensuring the network continues to be a recognized national leader in networking and service delivery. Valensizi's role also will include oversight of a team of talented individuals focused on the network management tools that are critical components to the reliable operation of NCREN. Ray Suitte is being promoted to Senior Technical Manager of Core Engineering and Network Deployment. He will lead all elements of network deployment with his highly-skilled engineering team on an infrastructure that has grown four times in size as a result of the GLRBI. He also will continue to be a key engagement point for all trouble-related matters to NCREN constituent groups. Peter Valentine is now Director of Facilities Engineering and Video Engineering/Operations. He is a 25-year veteran at MCNC and will continue to lead engineering efforts in addition to assuming responsibility of overall operations for NCREN Video Services. Valentine also is in charge of all facility issues, including MCNC's primary location in Research Triangle Park, as well as all 20 remote telecommunication huts now positioned throughout the state.

MCNC announced that Tom Rabon has been elected the new chairman of the MCNC Board of Directors, succeeding Michael A. Murphy at the start of the organization's new fiscal year beginning July 1, 2012. Murphy has been a member of the MCNC Board of Directors for the last decade and served as chair for the last six years. He retired from a successful investment banking career in 1999 and teaches astronomy and physics at Ravenscroft School in Raleigh. Tom Rabon will assume the chairman role on July 1, 2012 bringing with him more than 25 years of experience working in government and the private sector. He has worked extensively with governments around the world to create opportunities in emerging markets working with companies like Lucent Technologies, AT&T, Red Hat, and currently as chairman and partner at New Kind.

MCNC announced that the video services infrastructure on the North Carolina Research and Education Network (NCREN) is scheduled to be upgraded on July 1. MCNC has entered the final testing phases of Cisco TelePresence interoperability with H.323 point-to-point (standard on most desktops) and multipoint video services, and TelePresence Management System (TMS) scheduling. Also, a select pilot group is testing centrally-managed soft client licenses for additional devices including laptop and desktop computers and tablets. New services are scheduled to be widely available to NCREN users during the fall semester of the 2011-2012 school year. As a result of these upgrades, MCNC will be able to provide several additional services to NCREN Video Service customers and to support the use of Cisco TelePresence across the statewide community. MCNC is providing the TelePresence infrastructure capabilities so schools need only to purchase the TelePresence screen or any H.323 compatible in-room devices. Upgraded shared services include: Cisco TelePresence room registration with the MCNC Video Call Manager, support for multipoint conferences with both Cisco TelePresence rooms and H.323 rooms in the same session, self-scheduling by NCREN Video Services customers, and end-point management for supported video room and desktop systems. In the coming months, MCNC also intends to offer an affordable managed desktop video services solution as part of the NCREN Video Services portfolio. The NCREN interactive video network handles more than 100 hours of classes, conferences and seminars each week. Video Services offers live streaming of sessions with storage capability for future viewing. And, because MCNC's video services also are able to integrate many commercially-available interactive video technologies into sessions, desktop videoconferencing can be incorporated into sessions with more traditional room-based systems when needed. This will allow education institutions to gain maximum return on their already-placed video investments and upgrade capabilities as budgets allow.