Recap: Link Oregon’s 2025 Annual Member Meeting
Link Oregon’s first in-person Annual Member Meeting last week drew enthusiastic participation from across Oregon—including representatives from local and state government, nonprofits, K–12 and higher education, libraries and national partners like Internet2 and The Quilt. Commercial ISPs and solution providers—essential partners in Oregon’s broadband ecosystem—were also well represented.
The robustly attended event demonstrated intense interest among our members in networking face-to-face, preparing for disruptive technologies, and sharing best practices.
We are grateful to our speakers, panelists, moderators, sponsors, and attendees who helped make this inaugural event a resounding success! Presentation slide decks can be found here.
Key takeaways from all presentations/panels
Artificial Intelligence in Practice
Generative and agentic AI are reshaping how organizations manage business processes and data workflows, and this trend has implications across the physical network, cybersecurity practices, and future workforce/skills development for IT and cyber security professionals. Speakers urged participants to strategically embrace AI, thoughtfully evaluate risks and opportunities, and prepare Oregon’s workforce for evolving demands.
The Power of Research and Education Networks
Keynote speaker Derek Masseth, executive director of the Sun Corridor Network (SCN), highlighted the role of regional networks in advancing equity through broadband expansion. He discussed SCN’s work with the Arizona DOT to extend rural access via highway fiber. Masseth also spotlighted Arizona’s Maricopa County Broadband Initiative.
Resiliency Starts with Relationships
The resiliency panel, facilitated by Robin Mayall, Director of Information Services for the City of Eugene, emphasized the need for proactive collaboration. André LeDuc, Vice President and Chief Resilience Officer, University of Oregon, urged organizations to balance risk appetite with tolerance. William Chapman, Interoperability and Watch Center Manager, State of Oregon, stressed pre-disaster trust-building as a key to resilience planning and rapid recovery. A key takeaway from the panel discussion was to focus on building back better. Robin noted that it’s important to move beyond details of a disaster and the mechanics of recovery and create the “resilience effect” which is more about how communities fare and thrive and grow in recovery, not just go back to status quo.
Why 400G Matters
Panelists Mark Keever, Executive Director, Digital Research Infrastructure, Oregon State University and Christy Long, Assistant CIO for Technology Infrastructure, University of Oregon, made the case for investing in 400G networks to meet the growing demands of AI, cloud applications, and data science and to ensure Oregon’s institutions remain globally connected and competitive. Our own Network Engineering Architect, Richard Hicks, presented Link Oregon’s planned 400G network upgrade.
Cybersecurity Through a Business Lens
High Desert Education Service District CIO Rachel Wente-Chaney suggested framing cybersecurity as business continuity to increase executive engagement. José Domínguez, CISO at the University of Oregon, emphasized risk-based assessments before major security investments.
Advancing Oregon’s STEM Pipeline
Portland State University’s Assistant Professor of Applied and Computational Mathematics Will Pazner and Christy Long, University of Oregon, shared statewide efforts to boost tech talent. Pazner invited institutions to explore ORCA (Oregon Regional Computing Accelerator), which offers no-cost access to GPU resources for high-performance computing.
Technical sessions
Attendees broke out into small group sessions in the afternoon on a range of technical topics including Quantum networking, BGP and RPKI Routing, and Network Automation, led by subject matter experts.
A Day of Connection and Transition
The day offered ample networking—over breakfast, lunch, and coffee—and concluded with an interactive session facilitated by incoming executive director Dr. Jackie Wirz. Attendees also celebrated retiring executive director Dr. Steve Corbató and his remarkable regional and national contributions to research and education networking and public broadband policy. Dr. Wirz officially assumes leadership July 1.
Many thanks to our sponsors—Arista Networks, Ciena, Palo Alto Networks, Fujitsu Network Communications, and Astound Broadband—for supporting this important event.
We look forward to continuing the momentum and conversations via other forums in coming months!
For information on Link Oregon’s membership model or services, contact Jerry Gaube at gaube@linkoregon.org.
Link Oregon Member Event 2025 Photo Gallery
