Arlington, Va.
– The Consumer Electronics Association (CEA) today named the 2010 inductees
into the CE Hall Of Fame.
The newcomers will
be officially inducted into the Hall during the CEA’s Fall Forum, to be held in
San Francisco
from Oct. 17-20.
Leading the way in
the retailers category are Joe and Rachelle Friedman, founders of J&R Music
and Computer World. The couple started this New York City institution in 1971 with a 500
square-foot store, which has since been expanded to fill an entire city block.
Brothers David and
Eugene Mondry will be inducted for building Highland Superstores, founded by
their father, into a major CE retail powerhouse.
The final retailer
is Al Sotoloff, an executive with Silo Appliance City, one of the first big-box
format CE/appliance dealers and a former NATM member.
The 2010 inductees
in the sales, marketing and corporate executives category are Richard Kraft,
Frank McCann and Frederik Philips.
Kraft was the
first U.S. president of Panasonic Corp. of North America, while McCann led PR
efforts at RCA and then Thomson to help launch the VCR, DVD player, DirecTV and
HDTV.
Philips was
president of Philips during World War II. He helped save the lives of 382 Jews
when he told Nazi officials that they were indispensable workers for a Philips
factory, according to his CEA bio. In addition, Philips led his company when it
developed the compact audio cassette medium.
The latest
founders/inventors are Dr. Lauren Christopher, who managed the team of
engineers that created the digital satellite system for DirecTV.
Dr. Larry Weber, a
pioneer in developing plasma display panels, will be inducted along with Dr.
Ivan Getting and Dr. Bradford Parkinson for inventing GPS.
Finally, Cynthia
Upson, past VP at CEA, will be honored in the miscellaneous category. Upson was
a communications and public relations guru who worked creatively to promote
industry issues including the International CES, home theater, digital TV and
HDTV, CEA said.
