August 22, 2012

People Watch 08/22/12

Service Electric Cable TV & Communications President John Walson Jr. died Sunday at his home after being diagnosed with terminal cancer a few weeks ago, a company spokesman said. Prior to becoming president of the family-owned business, Walson Jr. spent several years in the company’s field operations, including 10 years as a headend technician, 10 years as a field technician and 6 years as a chief engineer for the company’s TV studio. His son, John M. Walson, now becomes president. Comments American Cable Association President/CEO Matthew M. Polka, "All of us in the ACA family are deeply saddened by the passing of John Walson. Our thoughts and prayers are with his family, friends and company employees in this difficult time. The independent cable community is thriving today because of the loyalty and dedication of trailblazers like the Walson family”…Mike Fries, president/CEO at Liberty Global; Greg Maffei, president/CEO at Liberty Media Corporation; and David Zaslav, president/CEO at Discovery Communications presented a $1 million personal donation to The Cable Center in Denver in honor of John Malone. The 200-seat theater at the facility now will be called the John Malone Theater, and it will be dedicated Sept. 7. According to the trio, “The naming of this theater in honor of John Malone is a small token of our appreciation for all that he has done for us in our careers, as well as for the industry as a whole”…Cox Communications appointed Vince Groff to the new role of general manager/Home Security (see related news in New Stuff today). Groff led the initial Cox Home Security development and trial execution and will now be responsible for the broader roll out and ongoing management of this new business…LightSquared Co-COO Doug Smith now will serve as chairman and CEO at the company…Robert W. Starr is the new senior vice president/treasurer at Frontier Communications. Starr had been global treasurer at Lazard Frères & Co. LLC…Brenda Boehm has moved from Cisco to be president/CEO at mobile unified-communications provider Tango Networks. Boehm directed Cisco Systems’ Hosted Cloud Solutions product management organization. Previous to that, she was vice president/Business Solutions at Starent Networks. Former Genband vice president/Sales Craig Freeman comes to Tango as vice president/Sales for the Americas…Jeffrey Eisenach has joined the American Enterprise Institute as a visiting scholar to work on government policies affecting innovation, entrepreneurship, and the communications and information technology sectors.