Good afternoon.  I am extremely proud today to be representing the senior leadership of AT&T Laboratories as we recognize the founders of the programs we talked so much about today [Slide 1].  It is our mission of AT&T Labs to provide the technical and the innovation focus for our corporation.  It is clear that the founders of these fellowship programs in the early 1970’s brought their unique vision and innovation in the creation of these programs.  For, thirty years later, we are now standing back and seeing that the same principles that they put into place then, apply equally as well today.  We also note with pride the success of these programs and the impact that they have had on our society.  So clearly these individuals have made the unique difference for our country and for many people.

The founders of these PhD fellowship programs were truly pioneers in conceiving and launching these programs at a time in which there were no role models.  They in fact became the role models for others that have followed as you’ve seen if you have read Elaine Laws' report. [Slide 2]  If you go back to that time in 1970-1972 you will find with the encouragement and suggestions from the African-American community at Bell Laboratories, Sid Millman came forward to serve as the first CRFP Chairperson, first executive sponsor of the CRFP and then he, in turn, was directly supported by Joe Giordmaine who similarly agreed to be the first Chairman of the CRFP program in 1972.  And they in turn partnered with Jim West, who you’ve met briefly this morning and will see again, to build and sustain this program going forwar

Later as time went on others, such as Arno Penzias, came to provide the executive sponsorship for the program.  Paul Fleury, who is here with us today, became a continuing supporter of the program and Chair of the program.  Alastair Glass continued on and we had Carl Spight who served as an academic advisor for the program and the champion and mentor support for many, many years.  Those founders are pictured on the slide that you see here and it is fortunate that you will be able to hear from some of these people in a moment.

[Slide 3] In 1974 the Graduate Research Fellowship Program for Women was launched with partnership from Sam Morgan and Link Hawkins, a key person here, served as an early GRPW program advisor who believed that a program similar to CRFP should be established for women that would promote grants and fellowships aligned with the needs of women and the technical needs of a company like Bell Laboratories .  And then Mike Geary went on to serve many years in championing the CRFP program here at Bell Laboratories going forward.

When Bell Laboratories split between AT&T and Lucent in l996, the same goals to support under-represented minorities and women in pursuing PhDs were embraced by Patricia Wirth in the creation of the AT&T Labs Fellowship Program, which is ongoing today inside of AT&T.  I can say personally that, as a member of the CRFP committee in the late 1980’s, early 1990’s during my tenure, I was amazingly influenced in terms of my understanding of the issues that we are talking about here today by people such as Carl, Jim, and Link, who created for me an everlasting view of what is important in dealing with the sorts of issues that we have today because of their personal and deep experience.

Thus it is with great thanks and respect that we today recognize these early founders and others who have given their time and support to CRFP, GRPW, and the AT&T Labs Fellowship Programs.  Without their vision the almost 500 award recipients would not have had the opportunity to have pursued their PhD and advanced degree opportunities.

Now I would like to recognize two of those founders who are with us here today.  Jim West and Paul Fleury, if you could both come up.  Jim, congratulations.  Thank you.  Paul, congratulations.   I would ask you to say whatever you would like to say--your remembrances, key thoughts, whatever that is on your minds today.

About the Speaker

Harry Burns serves as the Vice President for Service Management Development within AT&T Labs.  He supports teams providing systems architecture, design and development, testing, and deployment for AT&T’s service management and operations infrastructure.  This includes e-infrastructure, e-sales, and e-servicing; CRM and sales automation;  service ordering and delivery;  Inventory, capacity management and network database of record;  and service assurance.  His organization also provides end-to-end service architecture and technical implementation for AT&T’s Internet offers such as WorldNet and AT&T Business IP and ISP managed services.

Mr. Burns joined Bell Labs in 1966 and has held a variety of individual and increasingly challenging management roles in modems, business communications systems, and network management software systems for the AT&T global network. His career includes a two-year assignment in Seattle, WA in operations and network engineering assignments. In 1993, teams supported by him received the AT&T Bell Labs President’s Quality Award for the AT&T national fiber restoration system known as FASTAR.

In the first half of 2001, he assumed an interim assignment as Senior Vice President of Engineering and Development at Excite@Home in Redwood City, CA.  When AT&T’s business partnership with Excite@Home failed late in the year and the service was shut down, stranding 850,000 AT&T Internet users, Harry’s organization provided tools to automate the migration of virtually all customers to AT&T WorldNet within six days.   

Harry has been on the Board of Directors of the Software Productivity Consortium since 1997 and served as the Chairman of the Board in 2000.  The Consortium, located in Herndon, VA,  is a non-profit technical team supported by over 30 industry leading businesses interested in techniques and technologies associated with successful software delivery.

Harry has BS and MS degrees in electrical engineering from Penn State and Caltech respectively. He has been awarded two patents.