How has PTC changed since you joined in 1999?

My mission is to continue doing what we were doing, to do better and do more. Our mission is simple: to put out the annual conference at which people from the industry can get together to share information. It is also to bring the advantages of technology to developing countries, and in the Pacific Rim there are many of those. So we try to help them participate and learn about telecommunications. We have six different tracks for the conference which focus on everything from technology and business applications to social issues, policy and regulatory topics. There is something for everyone.

In the past, PTC would do two or three conferences a year. I've been working on increasing our conferences to a minimum of four and a maximum of six a year. Within the conferences themselves we've been working at bringing more high-profile speakers, creating more excitement around the events, so that people can have the complete experience and then some. On the membership side we've been working on doing more outreach and figuring out ways of better serving our members through an improved Web site.

What can you tell us about PTC's relationship with Hawaii?

PTC has been in Hawaii for more than 20 years, but not too many people in the island know about us because we are an international organization and we haven't had much interaction with local businesses and organizations. I'm trying to create much more of a presence for PTC in Hawaii so that people know about us and so we can put our resources to use for the betterment of the local community. We are looking to be a learning tool for local Hawaiians to learn more about telecommunications, to establish contacts and do business in the international markets, and to help build the technology industry in Hawaii.

Earlier this year we decided to create a technology tour. Hawaii has this image of a resort destination and not as a serious place to do business. We have all these participants in our conference who come from overseas and the continental US and we want to show them the opportunities in the island in hopes that they might want to open an office or start a business here. We help them get over the credibility gap. We show them four different islands, focusing on technology facilities and organizations so that they can see what is already here and realize the potential. We also bring students from a local school to show them what we do and go to the exhibits and be exposed to technology. We are now making that into a full-fledged program with about a dozen schools. We are also opening up our conference to the local people for free.

What are your expectations for PTC 2002?

I think that we are going to suffer some negative impact from the Sept. 11 attacks as well as from the recession, which has hit the telecommunications industry particularly hard. On the other hand I think we have a great program, we have terrific speakers and issues. We also expect large participation from China, which will be a new thing for us.

We finally reached an accord with Beijing over the political issue of how we refer to people from Taiwan, which will now be "Chinese Taipei." It took several years to get to this point. China is encouraging the industry to come and participate in PTC and is even sending its minister. This conference really signals China's opening to us.

Why is PTC held in Hawaii?

First, because from a geographic point of view it is in the center of the Asia-Pacific region and that makes it a convenient location. It is also appealing, especially because of the warm weather in mid-January. The multiculturalism of the place is an added plus that is attractive to both Asians and Americans; they all feel very comfortable here.

Is Hawaii a tech hub?

We have a dozen submarine cable landings, which means that we have full access to broadband width. But that is true of many other places as well. On the other hand, we are nowhere near the Silicon Valley, Hong Kong or Singapore and never will be the hubs that they are. They've had billions of dollars to spend on developing these cyber cities and to make themselves technologically cutting-edge and market themselves to companies. We are never going to be a manufacturing site because it isn't cost effective, but if all you need is computers we can do that. And if you have a choice between doing that type of work in Iowa or Hawaii, a lot of people might argue that Hawaii is a better option.