SCIENCE

BROOMFIELD, CO -- McDATA Corporation(R) (Nasdaq: MCDTA, MCDT), a leader in open storage networking solutions, today announced the appointment of John A. Kelley to the newly created position of president and chief operating officer. Kelley was most recently executive vice president, for Qwest Communications International, responsible for local network operations overseeing 27,500 employees and for improving service for 25 million customers. Prior to that, Kelley was president of Qwest Wholesale Markets, with full P&L responsibility for $2.8 billion in revenue. He will join the company on August 27. "I am pleased to welcome John Kelley to McDATA," said Jack McDonnell, chairman and chief executive officer of McDATA. "John's history of successful leadership, strategic planning, and managing and streamlining operations in the technology sector make him a valuable addition to our senior management team. I am confident that John will further enhance the depth and breadth of our increasingly strong senior management team, help McDATA fully implement our Core-to-Edge strategy, realize our vision of global market leadership in open SAN solutions and increase value for our shareholders. Kelley has more than 25 years of experience and has held a number of senior executive positions. While at Qwest, Kelley was the senior leader for in-region local network operations, leading the largest employee group in the company and responsible for a broad range of network, data and telecommunications services for more than 25 million customers in 14 states. Previously he was the president of US West's Wholesale Markets business unit and vice president and general manager of business and government sales and services. Prior to that, he served in two key turnaround positions as area president for the Mead Corporation's Zellerbach Southwest businesses, and vice president and general manager for Zellerbach's Industrial Business Unit. He also served as vice president of sales and systems engineering for Annatech, a start-up mainframe and service software company acquired by Novell. Previously, he held various sales and general management positions at Xerox, Alcatel and NBI, Inc. "I am excited to join McDATA and participate in driving the company's continued market leadership, growth, profitability and value creation, opportunities that are apparent in the storage networking industry," said Kelley. "Jack McDonnell has brought together a great team to lead the company in its next stage of growth, and I am looking forward to working with them to implement McDATA's strategic vision." Kelley received his Bachelor of Science degree in business from the University of Missouri. He serves on the board of directors of Polycom, Inc. and Captaris, Inc., and is also chairperson of the board of directors of InRoads of Colorado, a not-for-profit mentoring program and a board member of the Womens Vision Foundation. For additional information visit www.mcdata.com