HP veteran to serve unprecedented third term as IEEE standards board chair

By Jamie Beckett, Dec. 2006

Steve Mills, who is senior architect in HP's Industry Standards Program Office, has been named chairman of the IEEE Standards Association Standards Board for 2007, his third consecutive year in this post.

Mills, a 25-year HP veteran, is one of the leaders of the company's participation in industry consortia and standards development organizations.

The IEEE Standards Association (IEEE-SA) is recognized internationally for its inventory of nearly 900 industry standards in the areas of electrical engineering, electronics, radio and related engineering fields. The IEEE 80™ standards (specifying the Ethernet family, Token Ring, Wireless LAN, Bridging and Virtual Bridged LANs interfaces) are among the most widely used computer standards.

Mills leads the group's Standards Board in providing oversight of the development and revision of IEEE standards. This work includes approving new IEEE standards projects and approving standards prior to publication. Current standards work includes:

• Revising IEEE 1625™ Guidelines for Design, Manufacture and Testing of Lithium-Ion Battery Cells and Packs
• Developing the next generation of Ethernet standards
• Pioneering standards development in nanotechnology and bioinformatics

Mills, the first person to chair IEEE-SA three times, has actively contributed to IEEE standards governance since 2001. In addition to his current role, he is vice chair of the association's corporate advisory group and a member of the IEEE-SA Board of Governors.

Prior to working in HP's Industry Standards Program Office, Mills managed an R&D team responsible for developing hardware, operating systems and middleware for continuously available platforms in the telecommunications industry. He also spent several years as manager of a research team performing mid-range market and technology research.

Other contributions include developing networking products for HP’s commercial servers, initiating the HP OpenView network management program and the developing a strategy to move HP servers to a standards based I/O subsystem architecture.