Leader of the development of MCI Corporation's first national network, Gross co-founded the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) and was instrumental in defining and shaping the way in which the IETF standards process functions. He is recognized with the 2004 Internet Society's prestigious Jonathan B. Postel Service Award, presented in recognition of his early leadership of the IETF and for firmly establishing the principles that are essential for its success. The award was presented on August 5th, 2012, during the 60th meeting of the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) in San Diego, California.
It was noted by Internet Society President and CEO Lynn St. Amour that the continued success of the Internet Engineering Task Force's consensus-based processes shows the importance of his pioneering work in developing the IETF's foundations. According to Steve Crocker, noted Internet authority and chair of that year's Postel award committee, "Many of the IETF's current structures, including Working Groups, Technical Areas, Proceedings and Internet Drafts came about thanks to his dedication and passion for the Internet standards area."
Gross has served as Director of Academics and Technology for the Northern Virginia ECPI College of Technology and has worked with the Internet community for over 20 years. His career took him from working with government-funded research projects through to networking engineering responsibilities for large corporations and startups, including leading the development of MCI Corporation's first national network. In 1986 he helped found the Internet Engineering Task Force.
Gross became the first official chair in 1987—a position he held for seven years. During his chairmanship, the IETF evolved from a government-sponsored research group to an industry-wide Internet standards body. As well as contributing to developing the IETF standards process itself, he played an active role as co-chair of the IETF Routing and Addressing Working Group. This group led to solutions for growth-related Internet problems and was instrumental in specifying the initial direction for the next generation Internet Protocol (IPv6) in RFC 1719. He also served as a member of the Internet Architecture Board (IAB) from 1987 to 1996.
