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2019 Society Elections for Officers and Governors

2019 Society Election Graphic for web-1

The 2019 Elections for Officers and Governors of the Society open on Monday, 19 August, and close at 11:59pm GMT on Monday, 30 September. All Active category members are eligible to vote (this includes Professional, Executive, Fellow, Life, and Honorary members).

All voting members are eligible to vote for Board Officer Candidates as well as Governor Candidates within their Region.


For SMPTE policies and procedures regarding Society Elections, including determination and appeal of election results, please see Section 9.5 of the Governance Operations Manual.


Cast Your Vote

Enter to win 2On or before 19 August, all eligible voting members will receive an email at the address listed in your membership record. This email will contain a unique link that will allow you to access the ballot without entering a username and password. This link will be valid for the course of the elections.

If you misplace or do not receive your personal link, you can also access the ballot by logging in to the voting system through the following link, https://eballot4.votenet.com/smpte, using your First Name and Membership Number.

Once you have accessed the voting system, you will be able to view only the ballot for your Region. If you feel you have been assigned to an incorrect Region, please close the ballot without voting and contact elections@smpte.org immediately so that we can update your record and allow you to participate in the election for the correct Region.

If you do not know your Membership Number, simply log in to www.SMPTE.org, and you will find your member number at the top of the right hand column on the "My Account" page. If you are unable to log in, please contact membership@smpte.org or +1-914-205-2376.


Ballot Instructions

The ballot will list all available positions and the candidates running for each. Under each open position, you will see instructions indicating the number of candidates for which you can vote. Each candidate will have a photo and a brief candidate statement. Click the "details" link at the bottom of each candidate's statement to view their full candidate statement. In addition, on the right hand side of the screen you will see an "Instructions" tab, which provides voting instructions, and a "Details" tab, which will allow you to view each candidate's full statement and photo. Each open position also contains a "Write In" choice, should you wish to vote for a member not listed on the ballot.

Placing Your Vote

Once you have made your selections, you will have an opportunity to review and confirm your choices before submitting your vote. Once you have submitted your ballot, your votes cannot be changed. You will no longer have access to the ballot. You are also able to print a confirmation of your votes with a unique ID and timestamp, should you wish to have a copy for your records.


Meet our Candidates

2019 Board Officer Candidates

Standards Vice-President
Finance Vice-President
Membership Vice-President
 

2019 Regional Governor Candidates

Asia-Pacific Region
Canada Region
USA - Eastern Region
Europe, Africa, Middle East, Central and South America Region
USA - Hollywood Region
USA - New York Region
USA - Southern Region
USA - Western Region
United Kingdom Region

2019 Board Officer Candidates

The Board Officers comprise the Executive Committee, which, according to the Governance Operations Manual, "takes interim action on urgent policy or business matters which arise between Board meetings, and serves the Board by maintaining a close and continuing supervision over the operations of the Society." A listing of current Board Officers can be found here: https://www.smpte.org/board

The following Candidates are running for a Board Officer position in the 2019 Society Elections. All Officer Candidates are running for a two-year term, beginning 1 January 2020 and ending 31 December 2021.


Standards Vice-President

Two-Year Term, 2020-2021
One Open Position

Bruce Devlin | Founder & CEO Mr. MXF

Bruce Devlin square_0-jpg

I have a dream that SMPTE should be the heart and soul of Professional Media Technology with Trade Associations keen to work with us to further their causes. Search anything media related on Google and a SMPTE result should be on the first page. In my first term as SMPTE Standards Vice President we introduced software oriented working practices, a Technical Specification Process, GitHub repositories and more. An unfortunate delay was introduced because of an enforced migration of our standards’ Software Platform (Workspace), but that is now behind us and it’s time to re-engage the realization of the dream.

I want our standards to be searchable, accessible and relevant. I want the hard work that SMPTE members performed during the creation of those standards to be accessible to members. I want to continue the work on a board-approved SMPTE Knowledge Network. It will give member access to searchable SMPTE data sets like our standards documents, our registers, our plugfests and discussion threads. I want the Knowledge Network to be a key benefit to all SMPTE members and to enable an extended network that enhances our partner relationships with other kindred organizations such as the Audio Engineering Society.


Finance Vice-President

Two-Year Term, 2020-2021
One Open Position

Patricia Keighley |  Former SVP IMAX Corporation Chief Quality Guru

Patricia Keighley-square

I am the co-founder (1972) of IMAX POST/DKP Inc., an IMAX subsidiary since 1988. Now based in Los Angeles, CA, the company has been involved in the large format post-production of 400+ films released in the film, digital and IMAX with Laser theatre network worldwide.I am the current VP Finance on the SMPTE Board and served as SMPTE Sections VP, and multiple terms as Hollywood Region Governor and Hollywood Section Chair. In 2008 I received SMPTE’s Citation for Outstanding Service to the Society.

I am a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and an Associate member of the American Society of Cinematographers. I am also on the Executive and Governance Committees, and a past Board Secretary, of the Giant Screen Cinema Association. I hold a BA in Psychology (McMaster University), a M.Ed. (University of Toronto) and Directors Education Certification from UCLA’s Anderson School of Management.


Membership Vice-President

Two-Year Term, 2020-2021
One Open Position

Peter Wharton | President Happy Robotz

Peter Wharton square

I’ve spent my entire career in this industry, from covering news to developing products and helping create new facilities. Twenty years ago, I discovered SMPTE and it changed my future. I met new friends, learned new technologies and learned that our future depends on our collaboration and community. Today the work I do specializes in helping media organizations transition to the cloud and prepare for success in an uncertain future.

Technology is advancing at an accelerating pace while media businesses adapt to a continuously changing landscape. Through all of this, SMPTE continues to evolve, helping our Members prepare for the future and nurturing the next generation of media professionals. As Membership VP, I seek to grow SMPTE’s membership by launching new Sections and Student Chapters. We need to attract young media professionals into the SMPTE community and bring others from adjacent markets such as the IT industry into SMPTE. 

In addition to Sections and Student Chapters, we need to encourage more informal groups and SMPTE communities. I also want to help our local Sections have more engaging meeting and produce more events and conferences to educate our Members. For the Members who are unable to participate in person, I want us to be able to reach them by streaming these events while recording them to add to our knowledge library. Finally, I want to create a forum for media technology educators where we can help them educate the next generation of SMPTE Members.

Thank you for your support. I hope you’ll also consider volunteering to help SMPTE and share your ideas for SMPTE as we begin the next media millennium.

2019 Regional Governor Candidates

As stated in the Governance Operations Manual, the Board of Governors "is the top governing body of the Society and within the framework of the Bylaws decides policy which governs all Society activities...[The] Board is comprised of Society Officers, Regional Governors, and members elected by the Board." Specific information on the duties and responsibilities of the Board can be found in Section 7 of the Governance Operations Manual.

A listing of the current members of the Board of Governors can be found here: https://www.smpte.org/board

The following Candidates are running for a Regional Governor position in the 2019 Society Elections. All Regional Governor Candidates are running for a two-year term, beginning 1 January 2020 and ending 31 December 2021.


Asia-Pacific Region

One Open Position

Ward Hansford | VP Sales Oceania Grass Valley Ptd Ltd

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Ward Hansford is currently the General Manager for Oceania at Grass Valley in Sydney, Australia. Prior to joining Grass Valley back in February 2017, he spent six years based in Hong Kong working for Ericsson, as the Head of APAC - Television. He has been involved in the television and media industry for over 30 years — in the early days as a tech, and in the following years in sales/marketing and management roles. Hansford joined the SMPTE Australia Board of Managers as Secretary/Treasurer in 1995. In 2009, he was elected Section Chair, an office he held until 2012, and during his tenure the Board’s focus was to deliver value to the members and to assist them in achieving personal and professional goals. In 2012 he was the proud recipient of the SMPTE Citation for Outstanding Service to the Society, for his services to the Australia Section and the Society. Mr. Hansford's goal as Governor is to continue the establishment of a mentoring program for the next generation of media professionals across the Asia-Pacific Region, drawing on the global SMPTE network of skilled and passionate individuals to connect and support this mentoring program.


Canada Region

One Open Position

Paul Edward Briscoe
Televisionary Consulting
Principal Consultant

Paul Briscoe

I’m Paul Briscoe, a ‘lifer’ in the broadcast technology business and long-time SMPTE member. Having worked as both a Systems Designer and vendor R&D leader in my career, I’ve found SMPTE to be valuable to me on both sides of the fence. From early days of consuming knowledge to later contributing to Standards development and the local Section, SMPTE has consistently been a strong positive force in my career. I’ve long been involved in the Toronto Section board and have found that it’s rewarding to enable sharing of knowledge with our members. We have however two challenges to address. The first is bringing a younger technical audience to SMPTE so we build a strong Society for the future. The other is one of geography – in Canada, we have a large potential membership audience scattered around a vast country.

In Toronto, we have started a Student Chapter at Ryerson University, and have had interest from other schools in the area. While no single school may provide ongoing critical mass, taken collectively we have a strong opportunity.  The Toronto Section has kicked off a subsection in Vancouver which is slowly coming to life. We want to achieve critical mass, and begin to help that Section grow, perhaps serving as a basis for engaging new members in the intervening time zones through opportunities like meeting virtualization. 

We have a strong and motivated Toronto Board and in collaboration with Sylvain Marcotte, our other Canada Region Governor, we can address these two challenges meaningfully.

 


USA - Central Region

No Open Positions

 


 

USA - Eastern Region

One Open Position

Renard T. Jenkins
VP, Operations, Engineering & Distribution
PBS

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I am celebrating 32 years in the television and film industry. I am currently in charge of the strategic direction and design of PBS’s entire media-supply chain which includes PBS’s Advanced Format Center. I am leading PBS’ exploration of UHD, HDR, HFR and NGA as well as PBS’s adoption of the broadcast version of IMF and ST-2110, industry adoption of the AS11x family of specifications, Cloud-Based Processing, QC, Playout and Delivery, HD/HDR with HFR through the deployment of the reimagined PBS Media Supply Chain. For my efforts, I was named a 2017 Industry Innovator.

Prior to joining PBS, I helped design, build and lead TV One’s Production Facility. From 2006-2009, I worked to update and manage Discovery Communications’ Technical Center. While at Discovery, I also served as the operational lead for what was then the largest file based Avid Editing/Interplay/ISIS system installation in the U.S.  While at Turner Broadcasting, I helped move CNN into the HD and file based editing/delivery/archive environment and received two National Emmy Awards, two National Headliner Awards, a Peabody, a DuPont, and a Bronze Broadcast Design Award.

Today I proudly serve as an Eastern Regional Governor for SMPTE, board member of AMWA, Co-Chair of the UltraHD Forums’ Interoperability WG, on the NABA Technical Committee and on the Board of Directors of the Washington, DC Chapter of NAMIC. If elected, I plan to continue putting my time and energy into expanding the reach and visibility of SMPTE through the mid-Atlantic and northeast of the U.S.

 


 

Europe, Africa, Middle East,
Central and South America Region

One Open Position

Yvonne Thomas
Strategic Technologist
DTG (Digital TV Group)

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I joined SMPTE in 2011 for standards activities in the area of new production formats (e.g. 3DTV, UHDTV) as part of my role as Project Manager at the EBU. During this time I gained a lot of insight about how standards come to life and what makes SMPTE unique. Even if I have an engineering background I always loved working strategically and combining new technologies with the best user experience possible. During my work at the EBU and as Product Manager at Arvato it was close to my heart to find the best solutions, processes and conditions for what the majority´s requirements are. Besides the introduction of 3DTV, UHDTV, new LED lighting standard TLCI and a modern MAM I very much like AI technologies (or let´s call them advanced algorithms). My three main goals for the SMPTE as Govenor “EMEA, Central & South America Region” will be to better align Section activities, improve and speed up the standards process and widen the “Knowledge network” within SMPTE by using the great variety (languages, cultures, experiences, ages, colours) of membership. I like to work with Section members and better understand their needs which will be further shared with other Sections of the SMPTE Board. We are in a world full of changes and as a millennial I well understand what is required to stay up-to-date. Our entire industry needs to make a change in order to survive long-term. Let´s move closer together and use the full power of the Society!

 

Konstantin Glasman
Head of International Relations Office, Professor, Department of Television
St. Petersburg University of Film and Television

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I received my Ph.D. degree in film and television technology from Leningrad University of Motion Picture Engineers (University of Film&TV since 1993). I held various research and teaching positions (from an engineer to Professor and Vice Rector). I always taught students to speak the motion picture and television industry’s technical language. It was actually the SMPTE language. I created the first Russian SMPTE student chapter. Three managers of the Russian SMPTE section (including chair) are my students. 

I am Chair of the Video/Multimedia Committee of the IEEE CE Society, a member of the IBC Conference Technical Papers Committee, a member of the IABM Broadcast and Media Awards Panel. I was a member of the IEEE.tv Advisory Committee. I am currently the producer of the YouTube broadcast channels of the IEEE Consumer Electronics Society and Broadcast Technology Society. I produced more than 1200 videos for these channels.

SMPTE EMEA, Central & South America Region is extremely large. But this region needs horizontal links between sections and between members to network, interact, develop and become great. I understand the potential impact YouTube and social media can have if focused correctly. I have the right experience how to use them to increase attractiveness of the SMPTE as a globalized community to the youth. If elected, I will create the SMPTE network of interconnected and interacting YouTube channels and social media pages. My focus will be to stimulate young motion picture and television researchers, engineers, creatives and students to contribute to SMPTE activities.

 


USA - Hollywood Region

One Open Position

Eric Gsell
Staff Engineer
Dolby Laboratories

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I am a Staff Engineer at Dolby Laboratories, where I have worked on research and operations pertaining to Imaging for the past 16 years.  I have been involved with the development, research and testing of the DCI specifications for Digital Cinema, H.264 and the Dolby imaging products using those technologies.  More recently, I have been working on testing and support for the development of the Dolby Professional Reference Monitor and Dolby Vision for both Consumer and Cinematic presentation.  Prior to Dolby; I worked at DemoGraFX in Marina del Rey, The Model DTV Station in Washington DC, and the Advanced Television Test Center (ATTC) in Alexandria, VA.  I have been actively involved in SMPTE since 2000 initially participating in compression standards.  I have been a local section Manager, Secretary/Treasurer and Section Chair and a member of the Local Arrangements Committee for the SMPTE Fall Conference as a Volunteer Coordinator (2008), Vice-Chair (2009) and Chair (2010-2019) for the conference.  I am also a member of the Board of Editors for SMPTE.  I have been keenly focused on the educational pillar of SMPTE and how young professionals and students are able to find opportunities and avenues of success within the greater organization and how the organization can better cater to the next generation of Engineers and Entertainment Professionals.  I enjoy Photography, games, spending time with my family and brewing my own beer.

 


 

USA - New York Region

One Open Position

Thomas A Mauro
Arvato Systems North America, Inc.
Sales Manager / Broadcast Solutions

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In my current position as Broadcast Sales Manager for Arvato Systems, I’m tasked with business development for enterprise-class MAM and media supply chain systems in North America.  Previously, as Sales Manager/The Americas for Dolby I was a member of the Emmy winning team that introduced the revolutionary PRM series of reference monitors.  I have been in the media business since long before we called it media having designed and built recording studios, remote production vehicles and post facilities since 1980. An active SMPTE member since 1984 in the Boston, Rochester, Atlanta and Hollywood Sections, I held office several times in the Rochester Section.  I regularly attend, host and co-produce NY Managers meetings, and monthly meetings in the NY Section, assist in Section fundraising, and am part of the holiday party planning team since 2016.
 
I have two personal goals for the chapter. The first is to grow our membership and to recruit a younger and diverse group and, more importantly retain younger members, to sustain us into our second century. Our ranks are aging and we are not yet seeing younger members take an active role in becoming the next leaders. As well, the need for an Eastern US annual technology summit is becoming more and more apparent. We hear this most frequently from our younger members who don’t travel for their company. One option is hosting SMPTE tracks and labs at NAB-NY. I would like to pursue this and see if we can find synergy with the NAB organization.


 

USA - Southern Region

One Open Position

Merrick Ackermans
MVA Broadcast Consulting

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Hello, I am Rick Ackermans, and I am running to continue as the SMPTE Southern Region Governor. As many of you know, I have been actively involved in SMPTE for over 20 years and am honored to be a fellow of the Society.  Over the years I have been heavily involved in the Southern Region as a Manager, meeting host and organizer, where I have had the pleasure of meeting many of you. I am a member of most SMPTE Standards Committees and have previously chaired multiple standards and sub committees. I have lived in metro Atlanta for 30 years working in the broadcasting industry. I am Principal Engineer for MVA Broadcast Consulting and am currently chairing the SMPTE Studio Video over IP Drafting Group.  Previously, I was an Engineering Director for Turner Broadcasting where I spent 27 years.

My goal if elected, is to continue the great work we have been doing in supporting Section leaders in expanding the SMPTE Southern Region. With the addition and rapid growth of the Florida Section, we are showing terrific growth in the Society’s Southern Region.  I will work with the other members of the Board of Governors to see that we have the tools and policies that allow us to continue the growth and accomplishments we have made. As I have done in the past, I will work to clearly represent the needs, challenges and unique opportunities of the Southern Region, its film and television industry, and most importantly its members. 

 


 

USA - Western Region

One Open Position

Ben Waggoner
Amazon
Principal Video Specialist

Ben Waggoner (Copy)

I have worked on digital video since 1995. Early in my career, I had many roles: writing treatments and scripts; producing; directing; post production, and digital asset creation. I joined Amazon Video as Principal Video Specialist in 2012. I led our technical implementations of adaptive streaming, 1080p, HEVC, UHD, and HDR (launched nine months before UHD Blu-ray). I was a contributing editor for DV Magazine, and wrote two editions of my compression book. I drive collaboration between movie studios, post houses, distributions, tool vendors, service providers, and device manufacturers to deliver great experiences.

I joined SMPTE years ago. I drove Amazon becoming a SMPTE Diamond member, with Amazon central to revitalizing the Pacific Northwest chapter. I have advocated SMPTE standards with HDR, helping name HDR-10, and pushing standards-based implementations of SMPTE 2084, 2086, and 2094. The Western Region has dominant technology companies providing services, devices and distribution for OTT video. Most HDR and UHD viewership relies on a Western Region company for video service, cloud, or player. Our challenge/opportunity is the thousands of engineers building video products and services without core video knowledge. Thus repeats of the same problems: Legal range treated as full; wrong aspect ratios; frame drops, judder, jitter, and audio sync issues; and just bad quality. I believe SMPTE is the right organization to help these engineers-doing-video become video engineers! I want to help our Western region chapters raise the bar on the video experience by providing education, documenting best practices, and bringing in engineers-of-video as new SMPTE members.

 


 

United Kingdom Region

One Open Position

Mark Harrison
Managing Director
DPP

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I spent more than 20 years as a filmmaker and executive producer, across news, documentary, entertainment and drama. I won numerous awards, including an International Emmy and a British Film Institute Award for Innovation. It was my love of innovation that drew me into dialogue with technical and operations teams. I acted as a translator between the technical and creative worlds – always focused on tangible, deliverable benefits. That led me to co-found the DPP. Initially the DPP set out to bring end to end digital production to the UK, by defining a common delivery specification, AS-11 DPP. But the huge success of AS-11 as a piece of business change, led the DPP to become a formal entity. We now have 400 member companies globally, and bring customers and suppliers together to solve problems and create opportunities. My work with the DPP brought me into close contact with SMPTE, and I became UK Governor in 2018. I have taken a lead role in helping SMPTE adopt technical specifications, with the definition of TSP 2121 – or IMF for broadcast and online. Whether working with the UK Section Managers, the SMPTE Board of Governors, or on the ATC Program Committee, I always bring a business focus, and seek to ensure SMPTE remains effective and relevant. I am also supportive of younger, more diverse representation. One of my goals is to ensure that my successor as UK Governor is not someone who looks like me!