ARLINGTON, VA. — The Consumer
Electronics Association (CEA)
named 13 individuals who will be inducted
into the CE Hall Of Fame later
this year.
Retailing
• Joe and Rachelle Friedman, founders
of J&R Music and Computer
World, who started the New York City
institution in 1971 with a 500 squarefoot
location have been voted in.
• David and Eugene Mondry will be
inducted for building Highland Superstores,
founded by their father, into a
major CE retail powerhouse.
• Al Sotoloff, a top executive with
Silo Appliance City, one of the first bigbox
format CE/appliance dealers and a
former NATM member.
Sales/Marketing, Corporate Executives
• Richard Kraft was the first U.S. president
of Panasonic Corp. of North America.
• Frank McCann led PR efforts at RCA
and then Thomson to help launch the VCR,
DVD player, DirecTV and HDTV.
• Frederik 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.
Founders/Inventors
• 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.
Miscellaneous
• Cynthia Upson, past VP at CEA, who
was a communications and public relations
guru that promoted industry issues including
the International CES, home theater,
digital TV and HDTV, CEA said.
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.
