About the Technical Reviewers

Blair Buchanan's career in telecommunications has spanned nearly 30 years, during which time he has written communication software, participated in ISO standards development, and established a successful consultancy. Blair's involvement with Cisco began in 1991 when he designed his first router-based internetwork for the Canadian Department of National Defense. Shortly after, with the help of Cisco Canada, he became the world's first Learning Partner-based Cisco instructor. That company, Protocoles Standards de Communications (PSC) later merged with the U.S. firm Protocol Interface (PI) to form GeoTrain, which was acquired by Global Knowledge in 1999.

In April 1996, and on his first attempt, Blair earned his CCIE certification and became the 403^rd CCIE, No. 1427. Since then, he has designed and audited internetworks for a variety of clients in both the enterprise and service provider sectors. His clients include Nortel Networks, the Government of Canada, Bell Canada, the Government of British Columbia, the Bank of Canada, PSINet, and Mouvement Desjardins.

Dr. Ron Kovac is currently employed with the Center for Information and Communication Sciences at Ball State University in Muncie, Indiana, as a full professor. The Center prepares graduate students in the field of telecommunications. Previous to this, Dr. Kovac was the telecommunication manager for the State of New York and an executive director for a large computing center located on the east coast. Dr. Kovac's previous studies included electrical engineering and education. Dr. Kovac has numerous publications and has done consulting in both the education and telecommunications fields, speaks worldwide on issues related to telecommunications, and holds numerous certifications, including the CCNA, CCAI, and the almost complete CCNP.

Paul Negron is a senior instructor with Skyline Advanced Technology Services, teaching authorized Cisco training courses to a wide range of audiences. Paul teaches the Implementing Cisco QoS course and advanced courses on topics such as BGP, MPLS, high-performance routing, and other CCNP courses.

Scott Van de Houten, CCIE No. 1640, is a distinguished systems engineer for the Technical Operations Group at Cisco Systems. He is currently a technical lead for the Enterprise Routing and Switching Technology Leadership Program. His responsibilities include developing customer requirements for the product teams and customer technical consulting. Scott has been with Cisco for 11 years and has worked as a network engineer for 17 years.