Dear Matt,
Congratulations on joining the Quarter Century Club. Only twenty-five more years to go before you enter the Half Century Club! You have a lot to be proud of during your career and I have a lot to thank you for. During that part of our careers that we shared, you were so helpful and positive. Nothing was too hard. You always said yes and then figured out a way to make things happen. I still remember the day that you came to my office in Armonk and showed me how to connect to the Internet. There are many other examples I could cite, including building the first centrally controlled TCP/IP network inside IBM and the ibm.net backbone for the IBM Global Network consumer offering with OS/2 Warp and Web Explorer. A more subtle but profound follow-on was the creation of the first IBM corporate firewall which made it possible for many thousands of IBMers to gain access to the Internet.

I could not possibly do justice to explaining the key role you played in creating and operating the Internet infrastructure that served the web sites for the Atlanta, Nagano and the Sydney Olympic games, for which you got your name on a patent.

Matt, you continue to break new ground in your role as a professor of Computer Science and Astronomy. There is no greater way to share than to help students develop and realize visions. Thanks for being a truly dedicated, committed, and always helpful IBMer. I wish you the very best for continued health and happiness.

Email your own congratulations to Matt at [email][email protected][/email].