SMPTE Announces Appointments of New Secretary/Treasurer and 2018 Directors

WHITE PLAINS, N.Y. — Jan. 18, 2018 — SMPTE®, the organization whose standards work has supported a century of advances in entertainment technology and whose membership spans the globe, today announced that the SMPTE Board of Governors has appointed a new secretary/treasurer and has named the Society's 2018 directors.

John E. Ferder has been appointed to serve as SMPTE secretary/treasurer, a position left open when Peter Wharton was elected to serve as SMPTE membership vice president. Ferder has previously served on the Society's board as a governor of the New York region.

In his new role as Membership Vice President, Wharton has appointed two new SMPTE membership directors for 2018. John Maizels will serve as membership director for international sections, and Herbert Jay Dunmore will serve as the membership director for student chapters & educational institutions. Karl Joseph Kuhn will continue to serve as the membership director for North American sections, a position he has held since 2013.

In his first term as SMPTE Standards Vice President, Bruce Devlin has appointed John Snow, Dave Schnuelle, and John Hurst to serve as standards directors.

SMPTE Education Vice President Richard Welsh has appointed two new education directors for 2018. Yvonne Thomas will serve as education director for conference programs, and Jaclyn Pytlarz will serve as education director for mentoring and internships. Sara J. Kudrle, who is currently on the Society's board as a governor for the New York region, will continue in her role as education director for the SMPTE Motion Imaging Journal. Sean Lancastle will continue in his role as education director for university liaisons.

"The SMPTE directors for 2018 reflect the Society's commitment to providing the motion-imaging industry — students and professionals working worldwide — with timely, thoughtful, and engaging educational opportunities, programming, and standards and recommendations," said SMPTE President Matthew Goldman, senior vice president of technology, TV and media, at Ericsson. "The remarkable experience and dedication of our incoming directors will fuel the Society's ongoing success in expanding its reach and in shaping the industry's future."

On Thursday, January 25, SMPTE is offering a complimentary webcast titled "A Conversation with SMPTE Leadership: The Society Looks Forward to 2018 and Beyond." The webcast will feature Goldman, Wharton, and Devlin, along with SMPTE Executive Vice President Pat Griffis and SMPTE Executive Director Barbara Lange. The panel of SMPTE leaders will present the Society's Vision 20/20, and there will be a question-and-answer period. This special-edition webcast is open to all. Registration is available at smpte.org/vision-2020-webcast.

SMPTE 2018 Newly Appointed Officers and Directors: Profiles

John E. Ferder, SMPTE Secretary/Treasurer

Ferder was most recently director of studio and postproduction engineering for the CBS Television Network in New York, where he worked for more than 20 years. Together with his engineering group, he was responsible for the design, construction, and support of all production and postproduction facilities in the CBS Broadcast Center, including the renovations for "The Late Show with Stephen Colbert," HD upgrades for "NFL Today," "The Late Show with David Letterman," "60 Minutes," "48 Hours," and the 2008 construction of the new control room for the "CBS Evening News" as well as the new studio for "CBS This Morning." Ferder was elevated to SMPTE Fellow in 2012 and is a member of IEEE.

John Maizels, SMPTE Membership Director for International Sections

Maizels combines life as a media versatilist and technologist in television and radio with that of an on-camera presenter, technical writer, sound editor, author, and studio/OB operational crew. He also teaches multicamera studio broadcasting at the college level. A pioneer of distance education and business television, Maizels also has developed virtual routing control systems for broadcast studio use and has been highly active in the development of education and training for technologists. He is a SMPTE Fellow and has previously served on the Society's board as governor for the SMPTE Asia-Pacific region.

Herbert Jay Dunmore, SMPTE Membership Director for Student Chapters & Educational Institutions

Dunmore is an Adobe Education Leader who has served as manager of the Washington, D.C., SMPTE Section and as the student chapter advisor of the Loyola University Maryland Chapter since its founding in 2012. He has continually promoted learning between the student chapter and the section by hosting an annual meeting and seminars and by exposing future professionals to the creative, business, and technical realms of television production. Dunmore is the recipient of a 2017 Citation for Outstanding Service to the Society.

Karl Joseph Kuhn, SMPTE Membership Director for North American Sections

Kuhn is the senior video systems applications engineer at Tektronix, where he supports digital audio and video, compression, internet protocol (IP), file-based, and radio frequency test and measurement. He holds three U.S. patents and one Japanese patent that cover in-service testing of digital broadcast video. Kuhn, who is a SMPTE Fellow, served on the National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences (NATAS) Technical and Engineering Emmy® Committee from 2007 to 2010. Earlier roles with SMPTE include chair of the SMPTE Washington, D.C., Section and governor for the SMPTE Eastern region.

John Snow, SMPTE Standards Director

Snow, who is senior FPGA engineer at Cobalt Digital, has been an active member of the SMPTE standards community for many years, chairing various groups including the 32NF Network/Facilities Infrastructure committee. He currently chairs the 10E Essence committee. Snow is a senior member of the IEEE and holds two U.S. patents. He earned a bachelor's degree in electrical engineering from Brigham Young University.

Dave Schnuelle, SMPTE Standards Director

Schnuelle is senior director of image technology for Dolby Laboratories and earlier was director of technology for Lucasfilm Ltd.'s THX Division, where his accomplishments included establishing the THX Digital Mastering Program and the international digital cinema exhibition of the "Star Wars" movies — Episode 1 and Episode 2. Schnuelle holds four patents for his work during that period. He has participated in SMPTE technology committees for more than 30 years, beginning with the D1 videotape format in 1978, and has since chaired various groups including the 21DC Digital Cinema Technology Committee. Schnuelle is a SMPTE Fellow and a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS).

John Hurst, SMPTE Standards Director

Hurst is cofounder and chief technology officer of CineCert LLC, an internationally recognized developer of digital cinema technology. He has more than 30 years of experience in entertainment technology, at first in the practical application of recording and postproduction, and later in the pursuit of his interests in product development. Hurst has been involved in developing technologies for digital cinema since 2000. Under his direction, CineCert has produced benchmark d-cinema projects including the Waimea KDM authoring system, the DCI Compliance Test Plan, and the open source AS-DCP file access library. Hurst, a SMPTE Fellow, has developed many SMPTE standards for digital cinema and Interoperable Master Format (IMF), is a past chair of TC 21DC, and is a current chair of TC 30MR.

Yvonne Thomas, SMPTE Education Director for Conference Programs

Thomas, a product manager at Arvato Systems, has driven the development of the company's Video Production Management Suite (VPMS) MAM and the MediaPortal research tool. Earlier, while with the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) Technology & Innovation department, she was a project engineer in future TV and 3D technologies and then project manager for UHDTV standardization and the new TLCI Color Rendering Index. Thomas is a graduate of Rhein-Main University in Wiesbaden as a TV technology and electronic media engineer, earning the ARD/ZDF Award for the Advancement of Women in Media with her dissertation "An examination of stereoscopic perception as a function of various display sizes and the creation of a study on the acceptance of 3D." She also is the recipient of the TV NewsCheck 2017 Technology Women to Watch Award.

Jaclyn Pytlarz, SMPTE Education Director for Mentoring and Internships

Pytlarz is a senior applied vision science engineer at Dolby Laboratories, where she has worked inside Dolby's Advanced Technology group since 2014. Her research includes vision science surrounding technologies for high dynamic range (HDR) and wide color gamut (WCG) displays. Her primary focus is developing color mapping and display management algorithms to help maintain the director's vision on a wide variety of displays under various ambient conditions. Pytlarz holds a bachelor's degree in motion picture science from Rochester Institute of Technology, where her career in color and imaging science began.

Sara J. Kudrle, New York Regional Governor and Education Director for the SMPTE Motion Imaging Journal

Kudrle, who is product marketing manager at Imagine Communications, has 20 years of experience as an engineer in the media technology sector. She has authored papers for NAB Show, PBS, and SMPTE conferences and has been published in the SMPTE Motion Imaging Journal and Broadcast Engineering, earning the SMPTE 2012 Journal Award for "Fingerprinting for Solving A/V Synchronization Issues Within Broadcast Environments." Kudrle is a former secretary/treasurer for the Sacramento section and has previously served on the SMPTE board as a governor for the Western region. She is also a member of IEEE. Kudrle holds a bachelor of science in computer science with a minor in mathematics from California State University, Chico.

Sean Lancastle, SMPTE Education Director for University Liaisons

Lancastle is academic enhancement manager for the University of Bristol and teaches broadcast engineering at a number of universities. Lancastle set up the U.K.'s first media technology degree course at Southampton Solent University, where he also designed many of the university's technical facilities and developed a range of innovative education and training courses for the broadcast industry. He earlier earned his Bachelor of Science (Hons) in physical electronics at the University of Warwick and worked at the BBC as part of the team responsible for the design, installation, and maintenance of technical facilities, specializing in video studio, graphics, and postproduction systems. Lancastle also has served as technology manager for the GWR Group (later GCap Media), where he was responsible for the team that looked after 18 local and national FM and DAB radio stations from sites in Bristol and Cardiff.

Further information about the SMPTE Board of Governors is available at smpte.org/bog.

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About SMPTE®

For more than a century, the people of the Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers, or SMPTE (pronounced "simp-tee"), have sorted out the details of many significant advances in media and entertainment technology, from the introduction of "talkies" and color television to HD and UHD (4K, 8K) TV. Since its founding in 1916, SMPTE has received an Oscar® and multiple Emmy® Awards for its work in advancing moving-imagery engineering across the industry. SMPTE has developed thousands of standards, recommended practices, and engineering guidelines, more than 800 of which are currently in force today. SMPTE Time Code™ and the ubiquitous SMPTE Color Bars™ are just two examples of SMPTE's notable work. As it enters its second century, SMPTE is shaping the next generation of standards and providing education for the industry to ensure interoperability as the industry evolves further into IT- and IP-based workflows.

SMPTE's global membership today includes more than 7,000 members: motion-imaging executives, creatives, technologists, researchers, and students who volunteer their time and expertise to SMPTE's standards development and educational initiatives. A partnership with the Hollywood Professional Association (HPA) connects SMPTE and its membership with the businesses and individuals who support the creation and finishing of media content. Information on joining SMPTE is available at www.smpte.org/join. 

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Link to Word Doc: www.wallstcom.com/SMPTE/180118SMPTE.docx

Link to Photos of the SMPTE Board of Governors and Directors: https://www.dropbox.com/sh/8mp6r7rua88fdgu/AADCHrDTbC-obNJD3L20Sre-a?dl=0

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