Siemon Expert Panel

Siemon Technical Subject Matter Expert Panel

Global Market Knowledge/Commercial Insight: Keith Astin, Managing Director EMEA; e-mail:; Keith has over 30 years marketing, sales and general management experience in the electrical, electronics and communications industries. He has been elected a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Marketing as well as holding current memberships to the Institute of Directors and the Institute of Management.; He has a significant experience of the global market, having lived and worked in both Germany and Australia and has spent much of his working life travelling extensively in the USA.; Since November 2001 he has held the position of Managing Director EMEA (Europe, Middle East and Africa) for Siemon. In this role, Keith is responsible for further developing the company's business in the EMEA region as well as participating in the planning and implementation of global business strategies. He has specific responsibility for strategic global distribution plans.

EMEA Sales and Distribution: Rob Tansley, Regional Director UK, Nordics, Middle East & Africa; e-mail:; Rob's experience and knowledge has been gained through over twenty years in the Electronic, Electrical and Data Networking industries managing sales and distribution in Europe. Previous roles included European Sales Manager for Molex Premise Networks and General Manager for Panduit UK.

EMEA Marketing Strategy/Market Knowledge: Steven Foster, Marketing Manager EMEA; e-mail:; Steven has worked in the IT & Telecoms market since 1996, starting out with AMP Tyco and moving to a large system integrator in the UK. He joined Siemon in 2005 to build on their growing success in the EMEA network cabling market.; Steven has a BA in Business Administration, holds the Chartered Institute of Marketing Diploma, a Masters degree in Marketing. Steven was recently awarded an MBA from Henley Management College.

Network Applications, Trends and Telecommunication Standards: Carrie Higbie, RCDD/LAN, Global Network Applications Market Manager; e-mail:; Ms. Higbie has been actively involved in all aspects of both the computing and networking industries for the past 20 years, as well as all 7 layers of the OSI model. Due to her extensive background in networking and development, she has functioned in such capacities as, consultant, project manager, and Fortune 500 executive. Ms. Higbie is an active participant of the IEEE, TIA and various other consortiums for standards acceptance and is a common contributor to and author of network application and standards articles

Cabling Technology, Trends and Cabling-Specific Standards: Valerie Rybinski, Global Sales Engineer.; e-mail:; Ms. Rybinski's expertise is focused in the fields of balanced twisted-pair and fiber optic telecommunications cabling, connecting hardware, and cables. She participates in working groups responsible for the development and publication of telecommunications standards such as the pending TIA/EIA-568-B.2-10 (category 6A) and TIA/EIA-568-C.2 (future revision of '568-B.2) documents. She is the chair of the TIA TR-42.7 copper cabling sub-committee and TIA TR-42 appointed liaison to IEEE 802.3. She has authored over 45 technical articles and engineering papers and holds one U.S. Patent.

Siemon Labs, Future Innovations: Daniel J. Mullin, Research and Development Laboratory Manager; e-mail:; With 20 years experience in research, development and testing, including 7 years in his current position, Mr. Mullin is intimately involved in shaping the future of structured cabling. Mr. Mullin has been an active member of SC48B since April 1999 and is presently the U. S. Technical Advisor for IEC TC48 and SC48B. He is a member of SC 48B WG3 (Connectors) and WG 5 (Test Methods) as well as a US TAG member of ISO/IEC JTC1/SC25 WG3 (Customer premises cabling). He is currently an ASQ (American Society for Quality) certified Reliability Engineer.

Market Knowledge/Commercial Insight: Robert C. Carlson, Vice President, Global Marketing; e-mail:; Starting his career at Siemon as an engineer in 1992, Mr. Carlson offers the unique perspective of past involvement in structured cabling from all facets of the industry. As Senior Engineer, he developed many new products and holds a number of patents. In the years hence, he has held leadership roles as Marketing Manager, National Sales Manager, and now as an officer of the company as the VP of Global Marketing, overseeing Product Marketing and Management, Engineering, Marketing Communications and Customer Support Services.

Global Cabling Standards/Internal Operations: John A. Siemon - Vice President, Global Operations; e-mail:; Mr. Siemon has been actively involved in the development of connection systems since 1982. His responsibilities include manufacturing, quality assurance and engineering. His standards activities include past positions as Chairman of the TIA TR42.1 subcommittee responsible for commercial premises cabling (authors of TIA-568-B.1 and Building Automation Systems Cabling standard TIA-862); Chairman of the US advisory group on international cabling standards (ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 25/WG 3; authors of ISO/IEC 11801); and Chairman for BICSI's Technical Information and Methods Committee. He is currently chairman of the US Advisory Group on Interconnection of Information Technology Equipment.