CE Hall of Fame Honors Industry Leaders
October 23, 2009 |
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By Carolyn Slater
Earlier this week, CEA held its 10th annual CE Hall of Fame (HOF) awards ceremony, sponsored by CE Vision magazine, to induct 13 prominent CE industry leaders. The 2009 Inductees join the illustrious ranks of industry inventors, engineers, retailers, journalists and entrepreneurs who have received this honor since 2000.
Gary Shapiro, president and CEO of CEA, praised the inductees for their contributions to the growth of the industry. “The CE Hall of Fame gives us the opportunity to showcase the people in our industry that offer creative solutions. Their ideas have changed the way consumers live,” he said.
Here are the 2009 CE Hall of Fame inductees in the categories in which they were honored:
Founders/Inventors
· Dr. Irwin M. Jacobs, co-founder of Qualcomm who led the commercialization of CDMA technology.
· The team of Karl Hassel and Ralph Mathews, founders of the Chicago Radio Laboratory, which later became Zenith Radio.
Sales/Marketing
· Steve Jobs, co-founder and CEO of Apple Inc. who helped to create one of the first commercially successful PCs, the Macintosh (Mac).
· John Shalam founded Audiovox Corp. and helped establish the aftermarket car audio business, the aftermarket security business and the mobile video business.
· The late Neil Terk, founder of Terk Technologies, introduced the Pi antenna in 1987. The Pi was selected to be sold through the Museum of Modern Art.
Retailers
· Walton Stinson is president and co-founder of the Denver-based Listen Up audio/video specialty chain and also co-founded the Professional Audio Video Retailer’s Association (PARA) in 1979.
· The Cohen brothers: Norman, Maurice and Philip, grew their father’s Cambridge tire store in Boston into the discount retail giant Lechmere Sales that specialized in CE products.
Miscellaneous
· Richard E. Wiley, past Chairman of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), played a pivotal role in the development of HDTV, serving as Chairman of the FCC’s Advisory Committee on Advanced Television Service for nine years.
· Dr. Joseph Flaherty demonstrated HDTV to the Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers in 1981 and also gave demonstrations to FCC and other officials, who established the Advisory Committee on Advanced Television Systems, leading to the ATSC standard.
Journalist
· Aaron Neretin is a consumer electronics journalist who wrote for Merchandising Week.
Each year the HOF honorees are chosen by a panel of industry judges from nominations submitted by industry professionals.
The ceremony takes place at CEA’s annual Industry Forum conference during the Hall of Fame dinner attended by CEA members, Forum participants and CEA staff.
Walt Stinson in his acceptance speech talked about his boyhood love of electronics and how he could not have predicted what the future held. He said he was grateful to be included in the Hall of Fame that contains some of his heroes.
One of the most sentimental parts of the evening was when Neil Terk’s daughters Michaela and Romi accepted the award on behalf of their father who passed away in 2003. Michaela, on leave from the Israeli Army said, “It means so much that my father lives on through this award.”
John Shalam, a long-time CEA volunteer and founder of Audiovox Corporation, recognized the executives at Audiovox, Shapiro, the CEA staff and his wife Jane. He said he was grateful that his father had the foresight to relocate his family from Egypt to America when he was a teenager. He said, “America provides so many opportunities that if you want to work hard, you can better yourself.”
Photos courtesy of CEA
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