The Internet Commerce Association (ICA) released the names of the nominees for the 2020 Lonnie Borck Memorial Award. The award, which is named in memory of Lonnie Borck, will honor someone “whose contributions have fostered a sense of community within the domain name industry.” There were nine people from within the domain investor community who were nominated for the Award. Listed below are the nominees along with the reason for the nomination, as shared by the person who made the nomination.
2020 Lonnie Borck Memorial Award Nominees:
Andrew Allemann
He provides a lot of valuable information through his daily news and interviews with industry participants. Such knowledge is made freely available to enable anyone willing to learn to become a better domain investor.Ari Goldberger
As one of the first domain name lawyers, has always helped those in needBarbara Neu
Barbara has been a key organizer of domain conferences going back to the first TRAFFIC show in 2004. She created a sense of community, and more than that, family, at the conferences. In an industry where barely anyone knew each other, Barbara was often the first person from the industry that domain investors would meet and she made sure you felt welcomed. Barbara created a sense of community throughout 10 years of TRAFFIC shows, that were often held two or three times per year, and at The Domain Conference and Merge shows that followed. Ron Jackson published a great profile of Barbara that highlights her importance to the domain name community – http://www.dnjournal.com/cover/2016/july-august.htmDonna Mahony
Donna built Domain Boardroom into a strong community of domain investors. Under Donna’s leadership and oversight, DBR has become a great venue for sharing, learning, and discussing domain names with friends and colleagues.Elliot Silver
His advice always valuable and he keeps abreast of the domain investing. Also he has participated in the Pan-Mass Challenge, helping to raise funds and awareness for Dana-Farber CancerMarco Schmidt
Marco Schmidt’s ExpiredDomains.net domain name search tool is an invaluable resource for all domain name investors. Mr. Schmidt humbly works behind the scenes without accolades, continuously updating and improving his tool, providing the picks and axes to those investors mining for domain name gold. And, Mr. Schmidt offers his tool for free, without charge or subscription fee. He is an unsung hero of the industry!Michael Cyger
Having been in the industry for 7 years, I can wholeheartedly recommend Michael for this award. With his DomainSherpa videos, he has opened up the closed and secret society of the privileged few to the entire world. In his hundreds of respectful and thorough videos, he makes everyone accessible, using his positive, caring and community-building demeanor. There is no one that has done more to bring people together and create a community in this industry.Monte Cahn
Monte set the bar for registrar and domain marketplace services designed for domainers. From the early days of Moniker.com to his continuing facilitation of live domain auctions, Monte has been indispensable to bringing the community together and establishing high standards of customer service and problem solving.Ron Jackson
Ron has been tirelessly tracking and reporting on the industry and its players for over 15 years. In addition, his tracking of publicly-listed domain sales has been essential for showcasing the value of premium domain names to the general public.
The ICA membership will now review the list of nominees and their attributes and will vote to select three finalists. I am not sure if the three finalists will be publicized by the ICA, but I will share that information if I get it. The ICA Board of Directors will then select the winner of the award.
In looking through the list of nominees, I think it will be a difficult task to narrow down the list and choose a winner. I am not envious of the ICA Board’s task to have to select the winner.
The Lonnie Borck Memorial Award will be presented at NamesCon Global in January of 2020. It is traditionally a nice ceremony to honor the achievements of the award winner.
As an aside, I want to thank the person who nominated me for the award. I can see that I am in very good company here with many deserving individuals.
I am totally honored and humbled by this nomination. Lonnie loved our industry and served it well and with pride. It is exciting to be listed among the other nominees who have given our industry a chance to grow and thrive. Thank you!