12/13/94 RMIUG Meeting Minutes - Sam Cassidy, Lt. Governor of the State of Colorado

Urgent call for action! Please be sure to see the very end of these minutes. We need the help of every RMIUG'er. Please make your voice heard.

The 11th meeting of the Rocky Mountain Internet User's Group was held December 13th, 1994. ~110 people were in attendance with Dan Murray (dan@rmiug.org) MC'ing the meeting.

General administrivia issues and announcements of interest were presented.

• Dan & Will Clurman (will@rmiug.org) are putting together a list of Internet User Groups (around the world) that will be made available at rmiug.org

• NCAR has confirmed that RMIUG will have the room at the same time for 1995; second Tuesday of each month @ 7:00. RMIUG appreciates NCAR allowing RMIUG to use the room. We understand that there will be a slight fee for the room, and we may end up passing the hat at the meeting (if everyone kicks in a quarter, we should be good to go).

  As an aside, both Dan & Alek Komarnitsky (alek@rmiug.org) mentioned that the Executive Committee really does not want to collect dues; we feel that RMIUG should be a free community service, and we hope to keep it that way.

• Dennis Martin (Dennis_Martin@stortek.com) mentioned that the Rocky Mountain Windows NT User Group (RMWNTUG) has a Special Interest Group (SIG) for Windows NT and the Internet. For more information contact:

        http://budman.cmdl.noaa.gov/RMWNTUG/RMWNTUG.HTML
        e-mail:   Dennis_Martin@stortek.com
                  jlathrop@cmdl.noaa.gov
  

• Will Clurman talked about the Logo contest and asked people to cast their votes outside of the room. There were two entries that got the vast majority of the votes, and it came down to an RMIUG "exec" who cast the deciding vote. Interestingly enough, he was torn between the same two entries, and suggested they were each appropriate for two different things. At the January meeting Will plans to announce the results of the contest. RMIUG thanks all who submitted logos.

• Alek gave a brief review of the Colorodo National Information Infrastructure (NII) Summit held on the CU-Boulder campus on Monday, December 5th. It was a major sellout; many people were turned away and about 700 showed up - overflow seating was in the Events Center via TV.

  Overall, CU did a great job putting this together given the number of people that showed up and the $15 cost ... except too much introductions and introducing of introducers! ;-)

  A number of VIP's talked, and although it was overall interesting, it was also somewhat disappointing, since it seemed difficult to get "concrete" information beyond stuff such as Colorado will be the Center for Telecomm, etc.

  Wally Wedel (wwedel@advtech.uswest.com) posted a summary of the conference to rmiug-discuss, so I'll defer further discussion here (my summary was a bit more politically incorrect also).

Our keynote speaker was Colorado Lieutenant Governor Samuel H. (Sam) Cassidy (ltgov@csn.net) who has has been a leader on telecommunication issues in the state of Colorado since his days in the State Legislature. His background is in law, specifically real estate and business law.

He was elected to the State Senate in 1990 and became the Senate Minority Leader in 1993. He represented Senate District 6, covering most of the southwestern counties in the state. His legislative focus covers issues such as service-oriented government, quality education and balanced growth, along with working on formulating a state telecommunications policy. Sam envisions residents of some of the more remote parts of Colorado, such as his own mountain community Pagosa Springs, being able to telecommute to major urban centers, if the right infrastructure was in place.

Sam emphasized throughout his talk how it is important that people let their representitives know about their needs/want/desires ... and he issued a challenge to RMIUG to try and gets our reps on-line; pls see attachment at the end.

He mentioned that 60% of high-paying jobs in the next decade will be in or require telecommunications. He gave several examples of economic growth fueled by Telecomm. Most notably was Bill Loopean who trades stocks electronically ... in Durango! Bill has hired several graduates from Ft. Lewis college to help grow his business, and this has further helped the local economy.

He talked about how the Internet can help in Medicine (distance is irrelevent) and Education (we are no longer campus bound). The State has prepared a detailed report on Telecomm ... but it's not available on-line! Perhaps sometime in the future though; he mentioned that ACLIN (an on-line repository of Colorado information) recently received $2.5 million dollars in funding.

He closed with a quote from Edward Teller ("father of the H-Bomb) who said the Telecom is bigger than the atomic bomb - it empower's people like the printing press ... for good or for bad.

There was a lively question & answer question between Sam and RMIUG'ers. Many people wanted to know how to Email their state government, but Sam pointed out that (basically) no one is on-line yet. He also said that changing infra-structure within state government is very difficult and is a tough problem (he did say he *does* read his Email, and his last use of the Internet was to browse to Louvre in Paris).

There was concerns about Government Leaders & Corporate CEO's really understanding what the Internet is about (Alek's summary earlier about the NII echoed this), and one person mentioned how he was frustrated with the management at his company which operates in a heavily regulated environment (BTW, my hat is off to the gentleman who mades the blunt (but true) comments about his employer - big companies need more people who are willing to speak out IMHO! ;-)

Sam is stepping down in a month, but he explained the structure he left in place to help continue Colorado's increased Telecom use. It's a 4 phase program that starts with Community involvment (such as RMIUG), moves into a capability analysis, examines regulation, and finally results in statewide development (I skipped a few items in the interests of conserving space).

Finally, there seemed to be agreement that RMIUG wants our state reps to hear our side, and we want to get (or at least encourage) them to get on-line. Jeff Nieusma (nieusma@InternetOne.com) and Dan Murray have volunteered to coordinate - pls see attached instructions.

In closing, Dan thanked Mr. Cassidy for coming to talk with us and awarded him a RMII sweater (well, that's close to RMIUG! ;-) He also conducted a prize drawing for T-shirts, sweatshirts, a fax modem, software, an Internet membership Kit, and several books, compliments of Ed Bidinotto, Capella Networking, Colorado Internet Co-Op, Rocky Mountain Internet Inc., Compatible Systems, and Hayes.

Our next meeting will be Tuesday, January 10th and will be a panel discussion with various Internet Providers represented. Randy Holt (rholt@ingr.com) is coordinating this meeting, so pls Email him if you have any inputs/suggestions/etc.

RMIUG wishes to thank Internet One of Boulder for sponsoring the refreshments, NCAR for the use of their meeting room, and XOR Network Engineering for electronic "stuff". Note that more info is available about RMIUG by sending an Email to rmiug@rmiug.org

Suggestions/comments/feedback are always welcome - please email these to rmiug-comm@rmiug.org, or call Dan Murray at 447-3475.

Minutes Respectfully Submitted,
- Poindexter Grumulgut Yabovich the 3rd -

Details about how to contact your state reps - make a difference!!!

Jeff Nieusma (nieusma@InternetOne.com) has setup an Email alias of "co-gov@InternetOne.COM" which you can send an Email to and he will then snail-mail this on a weekly basis. Senders should put all name/address information in the message body, just as with a business letter. Be sure to mention that you want your government to be on-line! RMIUG thanks Internet One for their help in setting this up.

Dan Murray has suggested that we consider writing directly to our representitives, since it perhaps it carries more weight if letters "look" different. It's probably also a good idea to mention RMIUG, because then it shows you have support of a group, and they may possibily look to us for assistance, etc.

Dan talked with Joan Albi, Secretary of the Senate, and she said the two big "Kahuna's" we should voice our thoughts/opinions to are Tom Norton, President of the Senate, and Chuck Berry, Speaker of the House of Representatives. There is no FAX service, but the snail-mail address is:

Tom Norton, President of the Senate, 257 State Capitol Bldg.
Chuck Berry, Speaker of the House of Representatives, State Capitol Bldg.
(both are Denver, CO, 80203)

With your help, we can get every state senator and representative online, and have better access to them.

[Editorial Comment from Alek: The history & growth of the Internet has been largly fueled by so-called "grass-roots" efforts. This is another opportunity for the common man (and woman) to make a difference. I encourage you to write in.]