Chris Hankin

Chris Hankin has been the Director of Federal Affairs for Sun Microsystems since December 1999. In this capacity he heads Sun's Government Affairs office in Washington, DC. He has been active on a wide variety of issues, including open standards advocacy, employee ownership via broad-based stock option plans, reducing foreign trade barriers, and updating US export control policy. Chris has significant experience with the legislative and executive branches Before arriving at Sun, he served for three years as Director of Government Affairs, at NCR Corp., a business technologies company. From 1981-1988 he worked on international trade and congressional affairs for the US Department of Labor, serving on the US negotiation team for the Canada Free Trade Agreement. He then spent six years at the US State Department as the Deputy Assistant Secretary of State and Senior Advisor for International Trade Controls. While there, he developed and managed US policy on sensitive high-tech trade with former Warsaw Pact countries and China, and led US efforts to ensure international enforcement of the UN sanctions of Iraq and Serbia. From 1995-1997, Hankin staffed the Subcommittee on International Economic Policy and Trade for the House of Representatives' Committee on International Relations. He worked on the trade promotion, international agreements on telecommunications, and related trade policy issues.