OCP Growth Continues - Welcome Dirk Van Slyke and John Laban to the OCP Foundation Team

Since the Open Compute Project (OCP) Foundation began almost six years ago, we have seen the community thrive as it continues to be a positive disruption in the data center hardware ecosystem and beyond. The OCP community now includes hundreds of companies and thousands of participants. We've seen more than two dozen new contributions accepted by OCP in just the past year as new companies and industries continue to participate as they consume OCP gear, collaborate with the OCP community and contribute new efficient, flexible, and scalable hardware and software solutions to the OCP ecosystem.

To help meet the growing needs of the OCP Community, we are pleased to announce that Dirk Van Slyke and John Laban have joined the Open Compute Project (OCP) Foundation to continue to empower, educate and inspire individuals and organizations.  Mr. Van Slyke will serve as Marketing and Communications Director and will focus on Member value and communications, organizational branding, website experience and event management, while Mr. Laban will help educate and facilitate the adoption of OCP hardware in Europe.

Mr. Van Slyke has touched almost every aspect of the marketing process in his 27-year career, with particular expertise in branding and growth. He began his career working in brand management for full-service, creatively-driven advertising agencies The Richards Group and GSD&M.

A serial entrepreneur, Mr. Van Slyke has founded and co-founded a variety of organizations including investor-funded organizations from both public and private institutional and angel investment sources. He has led marketing in a variety of industries, including ecommerce, healthcare, fashion, financial services, media, retail, commercial real estate, research, home improvement, travel and technology.

He graduated from the University of Texas at Austin with a Bachelor of Science in Communications and Advertising. He is a frequent speaker and mentor for a variety of university level marketing and advertising curricula, as well as for the American Marketing Association. He has also serves or has served on a variety of boards for non-profits.

John Laban has worked in the Telecommunications and Information Transport Systems (ITS) industry for over 35 years, beginning his career at the London Stock Exchange as a BT telecommunication technician. In the early 1980s, he formed one of the UK’s first structured cabling businesses and later returned to BT to design their first corporate LAN infrastructure and develop their first structured cabling system. Later, he was the design authority responsible for the $100m Ford Motor Company ITS upgrade project throughout Europe and was a member of the team that produced the first Ford Motor Company Corporate ITS Standard.

Believing there was a general lack of quality, John was driven to "professionalize" the ITS industry, starting with a professional diploma programme for the Telecommunications Managers Association.

He became the first UK member of The Society of American Value Engineers, practicing systematic value engineering methods on ITS to eliminate waste and maximize value for his clients.

John holds a Master of Science in Computer Network Engineering and a Post Graduate Diploma in Management Studies and describes himself as “a practicing engineer that teaches – not a teacher that teaches engineering.”

Join us in welcoming Dirk Van Slyke and and John Laban the OCP Foundation team.

Get Involved

The OCP Foundation has many ways for an individual or organization to participate: online project meetings, OCP events, spec submission or review, follow our blog, join our Facebook group, add us to your G+ circles, follow us on Twitter, join our mailings and much more. To find out more about getting involved in OCP, click here.