Dale Hatfield

Dale N. Hatfield is currently Adjunct Professor in the Interdisciplinary Telecommunications Program at the University of Colorado at Boulder, where he served as Executive Director of the Silicon Flatirons Center from 2008 to 2011. Mr. Hatfield is also an independent consultant on spectrum management and related issues, having nearly four decades of experience in telecommunications policy and regulation.

Prior to joining the University of Colorado, Hatfield was the Chief of the Office of Engineering and Technology at the Federal Communications Commission and, immediately before that, he was Chief Technologist at the Agency. He retired from the Commission and government service in December 2000. Before joining the Commission in December 1997, he was Chief Executive Officer of Hatfield Associates, Inc., a Boulder, Colorado based multidisciplinary telecommunications consulting firm. Before founding the consulting firm in 1982, Mr. Hatfield was Acting Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Communications and Information and Acting Administrator of the National Telecommunications and Information Administration. Before moving to NTIA, he was Chief of the Office of Plans and Policy at the FCC.

Dale Hatfield has been involved in spectrum management issues for almost his entire career, including having major responsibilities for management of the resource at both the FCC and NTIA. Additionally, he has lectured, developed and taught short courses, and consulted in the area of spectrum management both domestically and internationally. For example, during 2005, Mr. Hatfield presented material and moderated a series of four virtual conferences on the topic of spectrum management for the development arm of the International Telecommunications Union (ITU-D). The fourth conference included participation by 18 countries around the world. Also, in 2005, he co-chaired the Technical Committee of the IEEE Symposium on New Frontiers in "Dynamic Spectrum Access" (DSA) networks, co-chaired a day-long panel session on spectrum management issues on behalf of the General Accounting Office at the National Academies, and spoke at the Spectrum Summit of the U.S. Department of Defense. Mr. Hatfield was also the co-author of the 2004/2005 ITU publication Trends in Telecommunication Reform.