SCTE Marks 40th Anniversary

The SCTE celebrates its 40th anniversary today. But the SCTE is more focused on the future than the past, according to the organization’s President and CEO Mark Dzuban.

Speaking at a meeting of the Rocky Mountain Chapter of the SCTE last week, Dzuban said his mission at the SCTE is to "drive a renaissance from an engineering perspective for the upcoming wave of technologies."

Technologies have changed a lot in the last 40 years, and the organization is attempting to evolve with those changes. Dzuban outlined two areas of focus at last week’s technical luncheon. He said the SCTE wants to connect more with the CEOs of the cable community, and secondly, SCTE members need to move away from their "playbook" mentality.

"No MSO CEOs sit on our board," he said. "We’re building a bridge through the CTOs. We’ve brought on Charlotte Field and Mike LaJoie."

Charlotte Field is SVP, infrastructure and operations, National Engineering and Technical Operations, with Comcast; Mike LaJoie is EVP and CTO of Time Warner Cable. (For the initial announcement, click here.)

Dzuban said the CTOs on the SCTE board will provide a "conduit back to the CEO community."

At the engineering level, Dzuban wants SCTE engineers to focus on their fundamental problem-solving skills, what he called "applied science," and not rely so much on playbooks with step-by-step instructions.

"What happens in the newer networks when you don’t have an IP playbook?" he asked. "That’s a huge gap we’ve got to close."

At The Cable Show in April, Dzuban also stressed the importance of network IT expertise to the cable engineers. (For more, click here.)

– Linda Hardesty