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Zenith Founders Make the CE Honor Roll

Hall of Fame Class of '09 Also Includes Wiley, Jobs

A former FCC chairman and the founders of what would become Zenith Radio are among industry leaders receiving honors this year from the consumer electronics industry. They are inductees into the 2009 CE Hall of Fame. Steve Jobs of Apple is also on the list.

Inductees will be saluted at a ceremony during CEA’s Industry Forum in Phoenix this fall.

Here’s the list of inductees for 2009, with text descriptions from CEA:

Founders/Inventors: Dr. Irwin M. Jacobs, co-founder of Qualcomm who led the commercialization of CDMA technology; and 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, who founded Audiovox Corp. and helped establish the aftermarket car audio business, the aftermarket security business and the mobile video business; and 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; also the Cohen brothers Norman, Maurice and Philip, who 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, who 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; and Dr. Joseph Flaherty, who demonstrated HDTV to the Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers in 1981 and also gave demonstrations to FCC and other officials, and 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.

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