Distinguished Staff: Mah keeps in touch with evolving industry

Scott Mah

Scott Mah describes it as "a really busy year."

Indeed. Mah has been the key UW player in helping to build the K-20 telecommunications network, a venture without precedent in this state. The goal of the network is to link the state's public higher education institutions and the public school systems electronically in a way that allows vast amounts of information—including video—to flow among the state's schools and colleges.

If that isn't enough, Mah has continued to manage telecommunications operations at the UW, where he is responsible for designing and maintaining the systems—the switches, digital transport, long distance, videoconferencing—that allow UW people, whether they are on one of the three campuses or at one of the remote sites at which teaching or research occurs—to communicate with the rest of the world. Mah's expertise has come to include not just telephony, but video and internet technology. "Through his dedication and continuous research, Scott has positioned the University as a leading-edge telecommunications service provider to its constituency," wrote one of those who nominated Mah.

The K-20 Educational Telecommunications Network, as it is known, finished Phase 1 late last year—a $54 million undertaking. This phase involved connecting the six four-year public institutions, 32 community and technical colleges and nine Educational Service Districts (which actually include 150 school districts) in a high-speed telecommunications network capable of providing video conferencing, satellite broadcast services and data transmission. The project so far has come in on time and on budget.

According to one participant, "The number one reason for the success of this project is Scott Mah." He is credited with both a great understanding of the technical side, and also a skilled handling of the difficult political environment. "Time and again, Scott has carried the day—made peace and progress—by employing an utterly stunning combination of deep technical analysis and deft interpersonal negotiating. The state of Washington has a world class educational telecommunications network, and the University of Washington has a new reputation for expertise and selflessness in Olympia and throughout the state, because of Scott Mah."

"When we began this project," Mah says, "everything we were doing was brand new. We had legislation, and there were milestones built into the legislation. We knew the early part of the schedule was compressed, but most of us had the belief that once we completed the first section of the project, the first couple of months, that things would proceed in an orderly and perhaps less stressful fashion.

"I don't think any of us realized how much work was involved, and how quickly things needed to be done to complete Phase 1 on time. We had a good deal of technical expertise in the group, and we were able to develop a vision of what the system might look like. But the political dimension of this work was something totally new to me. I believe I've learned a lot from this project, and that working on it has made me more effective."

Campus colleagues and higher education leaders, in commenting on Mah's nomination, wrote, "Scott has a remarkable gift for explaining complex things with precision and clarity, without even a hint of condescension. He demonstrates care and respect in all his working relationships with all people. In addition to all of these humane qualities, Scott has the capacity to recognize and to gracefully navigate complex institutional and legislative political currents, often with the skill of a seasoned diplomat."

Mah has been involved with telephony since high school. He had summer jobs in Vancouver, B.C., working in a small telecommunications company there that was developing new products and services. As a speech communication student at the UW, he was working hourly in the Department of Physiology and Biophysics, where he'd get into conversations with the campus telecommunications people and ask them why, in 1982, the UW was still using rotary dial phones. Conversations with the telecommunications people led to an hourly job in their accounting department; that position evolved into a network support position, a part-time job while he was still in school. The rest, as they say, is history.

"I've always tried to keep my interests in telecommunications a little bit ahead of what I'm doing day-to-day. That's what makes this field so interesting. No matter what period of time, I'm never bored, the job is never the same, and it's always challenging."

Using a baseball metaphor, Mah's colleagues describe him as "the once-in-a-lifetime shortstop who not only fields with grace and range, but also hits for batting average and home run power." ¶

Bob Roseth, News and Information