Advisory Board

Ambient has an Advisory Board for the purpose of obtaining the advice of experienced, knowledgeable business people and professionals in areas that Ambient may require assistance, such as government policy, international relations, utility engineering and law. These gentlemen are all leaders in their respective fields.

Senator Bennett Johnston
Senator Johnston, chairman of Ambient's Advisory Board since 2000, began his political career in the Louisiana Legislature, where he spent eight years. He then served 24 years in the United States Senate. As a member of the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources from its creation, and as its Chairman and Ranking Member for much of that time, Senator Johnston was either directly or indirectly responsible for all energy legislation considered by the Congress between 1973 and 1996. He led the effort to pass the first electricity restructuring legislation as part of the Energy Policy Act of 1992; which also contained extensive provisions regarding natural gas and overhauled the nuclear licensing provisions of federal law.

Senator Johnston was the principal sponsor of natural gas deregulation as well as the Royalty Relief Act. He was the floor manager of hundreds of bills, including California Central Valley water reform and Tongass timber reform. In addition to energy policy, his position on this committee provided Senator Johnston with an oversight role on the operations of federal lands and the territories of the United States, including in 1983 Compact of Free Association between the United States and the Republic of the Marshall Islands. In January 2001, President George W. Bush offered him the role of Secretary of Energy, a position Johnston declined.

Led by Senator J. Bennett Johnston, Johnston & Associates has extensive political and governmental experience and substantial insight into how government really works. First hand experience enables the company to develop comprehensive strategies and provide timely and effective communication with decision-makers to achieve its clients' objectives. Johnston & Associates communicates directly with the political leadership and legislative decision-makers involved with the issues that affect their clients. Among these clients are: Bechtel Enterprises, Boeing, Raytheon, General Dynamics, Integrated Environmental Technologies, LLC, Navajo Nation, Northrop Grumman, U.S. Filter Operating Services, University of Chicago and University of Rochester.

George Jee
Mr. George Jee is the Director of Resource Planning with Consolidated Edison Company of New York, Inc. Mr. Jee has been on Ambient's Advisory Board since 2000. He has over 25 years of utility experience. Among his other responsibilities, Mr. Jee is leading a team at Con Edison in the evaluation and possible implementation of power line carrier access technology. Prior to his present position, Mr. Jee was a Director in Con Edison's Corporate Planning Department. He was also the Manager of Energy Strategy Development and was active in shaping Con Edison's business strategy in a deregulated energy market and was the project manager in the Company's divestiture of its electric generating assets.

Mr. Jee has an extensive background in transmission and distribution systems and also held the position of Manager of System Performance in the Company's Transmission Planning Department. He has authored papers in the area of power system optimization and generator prime mover modeling and served as an Industry Advisor to the Electric Power Research Institute in the application of optimization techniques in power flow simulations. Most recently, Mr. Jee co-authored with Mr. Ram Rao, Ambient's Chief Network Architect, and Dr. Yehuda Cern, Chief Engineer of Ambient, an IEEE paper (May 2003) entitled "Demonstration of the Technical Viability of PLC Systems on Medium and Low Voltage Lines in the United States."

Robert Abrams
Mr. Robert Abrams joined Stroock & Stroock & Lavan in 1994 following fifteen years of distinguished service as Attorney General of the State of New York. He served as president of the National Association of Attorneys General and was selected by his colleagues as the Outstanding Attorney General in the Nation.

As a partner at Stroock, Mr. Abrams advises a diverse range of clients, including companies with claims of false advertising and packaging of products by competitors, telecommunications interests and the subjects of civil and criminal investigations and contractors with claims against the City of New York. Mr. Abrams has worked on international infrastructure projects such as the Haifa Carmel Tunnels Project in Israel and a study for the delivery of Caspian Sea oil for Eastern Europe via a pipeline originating in Costanza, Romania. He also has been part of the Stroock team advising the Commissioner of Insurance in Massachusetts on the demutualization of the John Hancock Life Insurance Company. Mr. Abrams has been on Ambient's Advisory Board since 2001.

Stephen Howe
Prior to joining Passenger, Mr. Howe served as Senior Vice President of EarthLink's Voice Business and managed the national rollout of EarthLink's voice products. As part of that he led a $50 million investment in Covad to build the largest DSL 2+ network in the US and built a nationwide VoIP infrastructure in fewer than nine months.

Before joining EarthLink, Mr. Howe was an associate principal at McKinsey & Company, where he was a leader in the North American Growth Practice and North American Service Operations Practice.

Mr. Howe received his BA Magna Cum Laude in History from Harvard College and an MA with Honors in Philosophy, Politics and Economics from Brasenose College, Oxford University. Mr. Howe has been on Ambient’s Advisory Board since 2004.