[Satellite Today – 2-6-08] The leaders of industry team that lobbied against international mobile telecommunications players seeking a global allocation of the C-band spectrum has been named Via Satellite magazine’s 2007 Satellite Executive of the Year.
    Kengi Chen, director, spectrum management and operational planning for Inmarsat; Kalpak Gude, deputy general counsel at Intelsat; and John Lothian, vice president, space development at SES, led the effort, in which the satellite industry argued successfully that the potential damage to satellite operations outweighed the possible benefit for terrestrial players.
    The scope and complexity of this effort involved representatives from companies around the globe, and the task of keeping the different satellite-related companies unified in their message and organized was a gargantuan one.
    Chen, Gude, and Lothian  will be presented the award Feb. 27 during the SATELLITE 2007 Conference and Exhibition at the Washington Convention Center in Washington, D.C.