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Hello and welcome back to Luminaries in Telecom!

Our May Luminary edition highlights an especially prescient leader in our industry. He has quickly built an outstanding reputation since he introduced himself to telecommunications in 2017. We are eager to share all we learned about his journey and what led him to the man we are titling, “The Architect of Sustainability” aka Mr. Peder Nærbø! He has brought awareness to our industry with his vast knowledge and passion for creating a greener world within telecoms.

Hailing from the principal port city of Oslo, Norway, young Peder’s professional career blossomed quickly creating many stepping stones that ultimately brought him to our industry. Peder admitted he was never fond of traditional education and only completed one year of college in London focusing on shipping (ocean transport). With eyes to the sea, he found a shipping job as a shipbroker that did not require a college degree. A perfect fit for young Peder, as this experience would become valuable and practical in growing his people skills. Over 8 years, he moved up the chain of command while becoming fascinated with collaborating alongside international clientele as he oversaw transporting steel products around the world. With his experience in more complex steel parcel shipping, he found it less appealing when the company changed strategy and offered in his words, “a very boring job shipping full vessels of cargo in bulk like coal, grain, fertilizer, etc.” With the unappealing job offer, Peder felt it was time to give college another try at the age of twenty-seven. However, his time back did not last very long as he reminisced, “The first day reminded me of what it was like being back at school, the second day was just to make sure day one was as bad as I thought it was.”

Eager to explore new paths, a friend recruited him to Acta Sundal Collier as a financial advisor in 1998. Through his position, he came to appreciate the value of real estate, specifically industrial real estate. As he stated, “Everyone focused on the beautiful buildings downtown where the high-rise buildings were in the Business District.”

“Nobody really wanted the low box sitting in the field with a lot of lorries in front…not very sexy,” Peder said. He thought differently than others and saw the potential to make very long lease contracts with these buildings. He started to pursue real estate and carved out a niche in industrial real estate bringing in long-term investments – not the glamorous high-rises others focused on.

A turning point came in 2005 when Peder recalls hearing the reports of his idyllic home city of Oslo “sitting inside of a fjord surrounded by snowcapped mountains” had the worst air quality of any of the capitals in Europe during wintertime. Traffic, like any metropolitan area, was an obvious issue but the true leading cause was the logistics with train and ship terminals next to the city center. The local government was shocked by this discovery and took decisive action towards sustainability. This included stopping the use of home heating oil, reducing traffic congestion, and establishing incentives for electric vehicles. Peder noted, “Nothing was being done for the logistics, the root issue. However, the logistic operators were already desperate to get out of the city, needing more space and modern facilities.” This was his opportunity to combine his background in shipping and real estate. “I started the company, Bulk Infrastructure, and worked with my investor clients to envision a more sustainable future for Norway. In doing so, I pushed the initiative towards moving logistics out of the city of Oslo.”

In 2010, having success with his first sustainability endeavor, Peder began receiving calls from potential clients regarding sites specifically for building data centers. “At this point, I had no clue what a data center was, I showed them everything I had, they left, and I never heard anything back! This happened three times. I said, wait a minute I have something here that’s interesting, but obviously, I did not have it. They didn’t come back and buy anything from me. They didn’t ask me to build a data center whatever that was, so I started studying the data center industry.”

Peder realized he could facilitate a historic push of data centers into Norway. The country was almost running on 98% renewable energy from hydropower, meaning the environmental impact of running such power-hungry demands could easily be met. Peder saw a chance to dive into the unknown again, combining his industrial real estate background with building and zoning for data centers. He began mapping out possible routes seeing data centers much like the cross-dock terminals and warehouses of his industrial real estate business.

Peder leveraged his skills and his newly found research about data centers to expand Bulk. He cites using his network of established contacts throughout his career, collectively teaming up with colleagues in the national rail and national grid sectors to solve the problem of the incoming emerging fiber networks.

“Norway has all this renewable power, but our early buildout in fiber was now more than 20 years old and had been chopped and changed for generations. We couldn’t provide continuous dark fiber over long distances, but this was about to change,” he said.

He created a ring structure in Norway to interconnect the coastline directly which unlocked some of the biggest surplus of renewable energy to Norway at the very southern tip of the country.

He envisioned building a large campus for data center companies to come together and build whatever they wanted using only renewable energy. The concept became reality, as it is the biggest substation in Europe utilizing sustainable energy, at 800 acres (or almost 3 square kilometers), and it is all interconnected with huge power resources. “We have a hundred megawatts on two feeds to our private substations and we have another 300 megawatts that we can tap into in 2026 when the national grid finishes a new mega substation on our land to interconnect new offshore wind with the current hydropower.”

In 2017 Peder found out that Google and Facebook considered building the first fiber cable from the U.S. to the Nordics in twenty years which later became known as the Havfrue cable. Through his vast network of connections, he found the right people to talk to about this up-and-coming project. Approaching both giants, he politely said, “I’m a real estate guy from Norway and I want to unlock all this renewable energy. I understand you’re going to build from the U.S. to Denmark and Ireland, can I please add Norway to the design of the network and become a partner and co-builder?”

They allowed him to build a Trans-Atlantic cable even though this was in a space that was unfamiliar to Peder. He jumped hard into this new venture. He was able to convince Google, Facebook, and later Aquacomms in coming on board to work on an agreement that aligned with all four parties – and so “we began.”

It took years of planning with some inevitable setbacks. However, with Google and Facebook being experienced buyers and builders in the subsea market, they made quick work of finding the suppliers necessary while Aquacomms brought the experience in operating these systems.

“I felt very protected within the group of companies we joined with, and the cable was then laid being the first cable to interconnect Norway with the U.S. and Ireland. This was a big achievement for me and my company,” he said smiling.

Peder reminisced on how impressed he was with the giant cable ship “Responder” from Subcom as it docked in Kristiansand where he got to go on board and look at all the facilities. “They had three tanks that each held 2800 kilometers of cable, enough to cross the Atlantic.  I remember being so impressed by the sheer power of the vessel for maneuvering rough seas while laying cable on thousands of meters depth with delicate tension control.”

Peder goes on and explains how the vessel uses a plow of 34 tons to bury the cable under the seabed, protecting it from fishing gear and anchoring in the North Sea as it crossed more than 70 other cables and pipelines like “threading a needle.”

He had the opportunity to pull the cable ashore with his brother, Erik, who worked on the data center campus. Peder thought, in the moment while the cable was in his hand, “My mother always said, do something you want to do, follow your passion and that is what we have always done. Two guys with no high education pulling Norway’s first trans-Atlantic cable ashore was quite a moment for me.”   

Later, Peder was key in terminating two other cable systems in the Nordic region, which also terminate into the Southern Norwegian landing in Kristiansand. Now there are several brand-new systems coming into southern Norway. Bulk started it all by building the backbone so that future cables could continue to land on the coastline and travel onwards to Oslo and Stockholm.

Inspired by Norway being a leading country in sustainable solutions, Peder explores to see where else we can tap to create a greener world. He explains that Canada has renewable power at a large scale with some of the biggest hydro plants in the world in Northern Canada, Quebec, and Labrador especially. “They also have a huge amount of hydropower that is untapped. Once you move power, you lose the efficiency of the power as you transport at a very long distance – a grid loss,” Peder said.

Peder said, “My ultimate plan is to interconnect large renewable resources in the Nordics and Atlantic Canada with fiber and data center facilities to play a vital role in clean renewable energy for data processing.” He advises everyone to ask, “How green is our data? Are you asking IT services what the CO2 footprint on your compute is? There are many renewable energy-fed data centers around the world, but they aren’t even a green dot on the map because they are hidden under layers of different products. If you ask these questions, this will help bring a rise to those data centers that are contributing to a greener initiative.”

As we close the interview, Peder talks about his move to the United States to be closer to the “Leif Erikson” cable project. His next trans-Atlantic fiber cable from Norway to Canada, the first with only renewable energy as a source. He also explains that over the last couple of years, the U.S. government and large shareholders are starting to put more weight behind sustainability and ESG goals. He added, “This is the green shift I have been waiting for and I see a great opportunity for my company to play a role.”

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Thank you again, Mr. Peder Nærbø for taking time out of your schedule to share a bit of your ongoing journey with us and the greater telecoms community! And of course, there is more to the story of “The Architect of Sustainability”, Peder Nærbø, that we couldn’t cover that we may revisit in the future. This concludes this month’s feature of Luminaries in Telecom. Please feel free to add to the conversation! Did you meet Peder Nærbø at the recent ITW? What did you take away from his sustainable business model/projects that benefit his company while also helping to improve the environment? Sound off in the comments below with any fun facts/specifics that may have been missed. For any suggestions about any movers and shakers in telecom history you think deserve a feature, send a message to [email protected]. Thanks for reading, until next month.

Hello and welcome back to Luminaries in Telecom!

April’s luminary feature is an established leader in the industry and actively advises numerous boards and private equity firms. His tenure stems from his service as a field artillery officer in the Army after graduating from West Point. We are coining him, “The Industry Vet” aka William (Bill) LaPerch. LaPerch has ties in just about every sector of telecommunications industry from data centers to cloud and fiber. He has collaborated alongside some of the biggest names in the industry. He granted us the opportunity to learn some exclusive insights into his storied career.

History in the Making

LaPerch was born in the Bronx in New York City, being the eldest son of seven children. His father set an early example of service to the community as a New York City Police officer. He remembers interesting talks at the family dinner table as his father was the “Kojak” (aka the Detective Lt. in charge) with Manhattan South homicide unit. His was a family of devout Catholics that further formed his background. After graduating JFK Catholic High School and feeling the call to serve similarly to his father, he attended the iconic U.S. Military Academy at West Point. This experience gave him a real lesson in leadership and the skills he would use throughout his career.

After graduation in 1977, earning his BS in Science he was commissioned as an officer.  In the Army he joined the famed 101st Airborne unit out of Fort Campbell, Kentucky, eventually attaining the rank of Captain. LaPerch reminisced with a smile about his service, where repelling out of helicopters and parachuting out of planes trained him to remain steadfast under pressure.

He brought his unique skillset to the civilian world and quickly found an opportunity through New York Telephone’s MCDP (Management Career Development Program) program, a career development initiative looking for veterans to take management positions.

Climbing Telephone Poles to Success

LaPerch’s telecom journey began upon joining NY Tel where he was tasked in managing various outside plant operating teams. He was faced with his first major challenge; multiple lengthy union strikes that forced him to learn the technical side of the field. This required him to climb into manholes, clamber up telephone poles and splice wires. While navigating these hurdles, he met his first mentor, George Barletta. Barletta saw and believed in LaPerch’s potential. He offered to be a sponsor in furthering LaPerch’s education and encouraged him to get an MBA at Columbia.

This ultimately would lead to another opportunity that LaPerch could not pass up, when an old colleague of his urged him to join MCI. As LaPerch remembers, Nate Kantor, a fellow West Point alum, badgered him for months attempting to recruit him to MCI. He remembers saying to Nate, “I might be interested but I’m not leaving a company that’s on strike, they need my help”. On the day the strike finally ended, he made the decision and climbed all the way up a telephone pole and called Nate right then and there and said, ‘OK Nate, I’ll take the job!’”

Jumping on board with MCI in 87’ the world opened up to the young New Yorker now tasked with traveling across the country building out fiber networks. He used the tools of the time, such as, V-Net, Friends and Family and the advent of the newest innovative system that was about to change the world, email. 

LaPerch reflected “as silly as it sounds today, when I joined MCI, the paradigm shift was from a company that communicated over days and weeks via carbon copies to one that communicated instantaneously by way of email.”

LaPerch expressed, “It was great timing to join the David vs Goliath fight in MCI’s growth. It was a faster, more flexible environment – think DIY guerrilla warfare much more so than the structured groups I had become accustomed to. The team of people I worked with were the do-it, fix-it-type mentality. Many of my successes can be traced to life-long friendships and connections I made while at MCI.  It was truly life changing.”

After a 10-year run at MCI, it was time for another change as World-Com acquired MCI. LaPerch, with many of his peers, left MCI since this wasn’t an acquisition they wanted to work for. The next step in his career took him back to his home state with Metromedia Fiber Network. A novel group for LaPerch to join as it was the first company to construct fiber into the metro market, rather than between cities as was standard at the time. LaPerch crafted a reputation as a capable operator and was granted permission to be captain of the “dream team”.

Rising Ranks

LaPerch onboarded fifteen of his best from MCI to run all the cities where Metromedia was established. Working as a collective in achieving these lofty goals of effectively competing in ILEC dominated local markets, Metromedia ended up spending about four billion dollars in building networks out in thirty major cities and eight major European markets. Six months into his time, the infamous Internet bubble burst, causing massive reorganization/rebranding for not just Metromedia, but the entire industry.

LaPerch had much to say about his experiences during this time of the industry and what he was able to achieve, “I was COO of the company and it had gone bankrupt… I was able to convince a former colleague from MCI, John Gerdelman, himself a former Navy Top Gun Pilot, as well as my leader and mentor at MCI to become the CEO. John fulfilled his role of handling all the messy and complex bankruptcy related issues, while I essentially ran the company. After all was done and the dust cleared, John left to pursue his own projects while I took over as CEO of the newly coined AboveNet. 

After restructuring we were able to essentially build the company on the back of enterprise thirst for high bandwidth fiber solutions. We enjoyed 11 years of double-digit growth and we were able to build value effectively. In 2012, we sold our company to Zayo for $2.25 billion. Our shareholders enjoyed a 13x return over this period. Out of the fifteen that joined me from MCI, fourteen had stuck it out with me through it all. We did it as a team and all of us were rewarded financially. That team was what created the value. I was the CEO, but clearly the team around me was the reason for my success.”

“Having great assets is a good thing, having great people around you is much more important” LaPerch said. “Anyone can put people around themselves that complement them. I think great leaders find a way to put people around themselves that supplement them. Doing that really strikes me as being important for success in business.”

After selling AboveNet, LaPerch has remained active through his own firm LaPerch Consulting. As many of you readers know, he serves on numerous boards for some of the big names in the industry including Windstream, Digital Realty Trust, First Light, ITG and South Reach Networks to name a few. 

“One of the things I learned through my board experience is how to toe the line between oversight and management. I have a penchant for action. When I see something wrong, I want to fix it or get involved in fixing it. That’s not really a board’s responsibility. The responsibility is to provide oversight so management can go do those things,” he said. “Additionally make sure when you interact with management, you do it with the intention of creating value for the company and not just creating more work for an already busy management team.”

LaPerch offered some insights about where the industry is heading with Fiber and with The Edge.

“Basically, The Edge is about gathering and storing data closer to where the data lives,” he said. Networks don’t need to bring all the information to centralized locations. “You’d rather have Edge collection points all around the country where you would store and manipulate the data, and then return it to its origin very quickly. Much of The Edge is going to be about latency and how quickly all of this is going to happen. 

“To me The Edge could easily be on every cellular tower in the U.S., they all have enough space to put a few servers in,” or he said. “Why isn’t The Edge every old central office that Lumen, AT&T, or Verizon has? They are centrally located buildings that would be ideal” LaPerch summarizes by pointing out “the edge is in very early innings. There are still many things to evolve, and the final definition has not been settled on.” 

“Fiber really defines where I have come from” LaPerch points out “Today, fiber and the connectivity it provides is basically a utility that everyone needs access to. While I have enjoyed watching the evolution of fiber connectivity over the past 20 years, we still have lots to do and much to build. This is evidence by the billions of dollars our government is spending to deploy it ubiquitously. Fiber is the lifeblood of digital infrastructure.”

Well said Bill LaPerch! Thank you for taking time out of your schedule to share your story and some wisdom! And of course, there is more to the story of “The Industry Vet” Bill LaPerch that we just couldn’t cover and that we may revisit in the future. A strapping young man from the boogie-down Bronx became a leader and role model for the telecom industry.  This concludes this month’s feature of Luminaries in Telecom. Please feel free to add to the conversation! Have you worked alongside Bill LaPerch before? What did you take away from his adaptability and approach? Sound off in the comments below with any fun facts/specifics that may have been missed or any suggestions about any movers and shakers in telecom history you think deserve a feature. Send a message to [email protected].

Hello all and welcome back to Luminaries in Telecom!

We reached out to see what insights our education system is discovering about meta topics that are affecting not just our industry, but society entirely. Current trends including infinitely complex open A.I space, ChatGPT, Cyber Warfare/Security, and the Internet of Things (IoT). This month we got that opportunity to illuminate a scholar in the industry, Dr. Jenifer Sunrise Winter, a professor at the University of Hawaii at Manoa School of Communication and Information. She is also the Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Information, Communication, and Ethics in Society and the Co-Chair of the Research Committee at Pacific Telecommunication Council (PTC).

Dr. Winter has immersed herself in studying and researching multiple facets of the industry. She has made her mark on the world, showcasing years of dedication to teaching and understanding the field of telecommunications through various publications. We are eager to share all that we have learned from Dr. Winter, in this enlightening Q&A edition of NJFX’s Luminaries in Telecom!

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Q: Events such as ever increasing public/private sector A.I and the rise of cyber/domestic attacks of major institutions such as Uber, GitHub etc. As well as attacks on multiple substations nationwide the recent attack in D.C. comes to mind. How do we further prevent and safeguard ourselves as a member of the telecoms community and as a further message to our colleagues and partners?

A: We have seen increasingly sophisticated attacks on critical cyber and physical infrastructure for some time, and this will likely continue to accelerate. Today, every sector – the economy, agriculture, natural resources, health, energy, education, defense – is increasingly reliant on telecom networks, and homes, cars, and even our bodies are also connected to myriad networked devices. This is a constantly changing landscape with more and more sophisticated attacks and more vectors for attack. This includes ever-sophisticated AI as both a threat and possible defense. We can even look ahead to concerns such as the possible development of quantum encryption/decryption. There is no easy answer, of course, but telecoms companies should continue to work closely with federal agencies on securing critical infrastructure, and we need to create an even better pipeline of trained cybersecurity experts.

Q: It seems as though the Gen pop is OK with quickly clicking “Yes” on the terms of service (T.o.S) giving carte blanche to companies to buy/sell/trade user data. This in turn further increasing malware/spam/phishing attempts by bad actors to gain further data on those uninitiated such as the youth/elderly. What can we do as a collective to crackdown on such a widespread issue further preventing these bad actors from spreading?

A: The EU, under GDPR, has taken action to restrict the collection and use of personal data, and we see individual U.S. states adopting similar policies. We also see signs that the U.S. government is looking towards stronger data protection laws and enforcements. I think this is a first step towards a solution. For example, I note with interest recent discussions about the FTC requiring “algorithmic disgorgement” (i.e., destruction of AI algorithms derived from unlawful data collection).

Q: What are some communications related issues Hawai‘i residents face vs. mainlanders may not be aware of?

A: Hawaiʻi is the most geographically isolated population center in the world (1.44 million residents and a few hundred thousand visitors on an average day). It is a volcanic island chain with seven populated islands located in the central Pacific Ocean. As such, we are highly reliant on submarine fiber and some more limited satellite coverage. Decades ago, people thought that we would always be the meeting place between East and West, and that new submarine fiber drops were assured. Over time, as the technology progressed, more and more new fiber routes bypassed us. We are fortunate to have some amazing telecom leaders here who have been working to ensure we are not left behind (for example, the Broadband Hui, a collection of more than 200 telecoms folks, local government leaders, non-profits, and educators who want to improve broadband infrastructure and advance digital equity). Many people in the U.S. will be surprised to learn that our urban areas have historically been a bit ahead of the U.S. mainland as far as telecom services (early mobile adoption, WWW, broadband, etc.) We have been innovators and early adopters. We had early giants like Norm Abramson (AlohaNet) and Wes Peterson here on the UH faculty, and have always had passionate leaders who worked for the benefit of Hawai‘i and the Pacific. We do have a notable rural-urban divide as with many parts of the U.S., so there is still much work to do!

Q: What are the biggest trends/concerns/predictions to watch for?

A: I think it is clear that we have entered a completely new telecoms policy space, largely brought about by the challenges of multiple technologies characterizing the modern Internet—and data is central to it. Many of us are very interested in artificial intelligence or the Internet of Things or Big Data – I myself have published in all of these areas. What I’ve come to realize is that we really need to think of these as a collection of interrelated technologies that together are driving the so-called “data revolution”. This revolution is not just about more data-–there are many novel data types-–the Fitbit or Apple Watch you may be wearing, sensors in the natural environment—there’s a huge amount of data being shared and, importantly, new analytic tools to make sense of it. In many cases, these data are aggregated, shared or resold–moving data beyond its original context. Predictive analytics also creates new data that move beyond their original context. Data linkages are increasingly common –and some argue necessary for innovation in AI and machine learning. There are many seeking to exploit the value of these data resources. My forecast for this year is that we are going to see more tensions between Big Tech and government, with heightened concern about individual privacy and security, and social equity. I think we will see stronger attempts in the U.S. to create and enforce related regulations and policies.

For the record, I am not really sold on ChatGPT or the Metaverse being transformative in any fundamental way this year. I am, however, watching with interest.

Q: Out of your many publications which one would you like highlighted. Any favorites that have direct correlation to some current geopolitical events?

A: I recently published an article in Telecommunications Policy with my colleague Elizabeth Davidson on the subject of personally generated health data (PGHD) governance. PGHD are data collected by patients themselves using apps provided by health technology firms. These data often fall outside of conventional health data regulation in the U.S. (such as HIPAA) and some other countries. We are seeing  friction between federal- or state-regulated health data and what is essentially self-regulated PGHD collected by Big Tech, and our work offers insights to resolve this. Given that data is so fundamental to the function of many aspects of our lives, questions about how we can better manage it has led me to work for several years in this area. The pandemic of the last three years has highlighted in a way that we could not have imagined the importance the governance of health data has to policy at all levels. 

Q:  Millennials, Gen-Z, and Gen Alpha are quickly approaching an age of responsibility. We are trying to find solutions to the worlds many complex issues all the while trying to find the specialization that suits us best. Do you have any words of encouragement to the young leaders entering the industry?

A: I think everyone benefits from a diverse skill set. It fosters problem-solving and interdisciplinary insights. Don’t  feel you have to narrow in on an exact career path right away. Take a variety of subjects that interest you, go to events, and try an internship or two. If you are in the workforce, see what various teams are doing within the organization. There is definitely a place for you, so find others that are doing what you think looks interesting and learn about their own pathways and the competencies they think were most essential to develop.

Q: Any closing remarks/asides to close with?

A: Mahalo! I hope that we will see you in Hawai‘i –perhaps at PTC ’24!

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Thank you again Dr. Winter for taking the time out of your schedule to enlighten us! This concludes this month’s feature of Luminaries in Telecom. Please feel free to add to the conversation and tell is what you learned from this interview. Sound off in the comments below with any fun facts/specifics, or any suggestions about any movers and shakers in telecom history you think deserve a feature send a message to [email protected]. We at NJFX hope you’ve gleaned a bit of inspiration to take with you through the rest of your week!

Hello and welcome back to Luminaries in Telecom!

This month’s feature is about an enduring telecom icon, who is not as well-known as he should be. He recently celebrated his 92^nd birthday and is still going strong in the field! A simple question to start: Have you made a phone/Zoom call today, or maybe used anything with a microphone within the past week? I’m sure we all have multiple times just today, and we owe a huge thanks for that to our latest luminary. An enthusiastic educator and a revolutionary inventor, having been called “The Black Edison,” Dr. James Edward Maceo West’s work continues to change the world! He and his colleagues brought forth the evolution of the very way we communicate not just in the telecom industry but as a society. In this latest edition of NJFX’s Luminaries series, we’re eager to share all that we have learned and hope to shed some light on a little-known, but globally substantial piece of African American history.

West was born in 1931 at his grandparents’ home in Farmville, Virginia, since the local hospital would not admit African Americans, reflecting racial prejudice from the very start of his life. His grandmother, formerly enslaved herself, helped deliver him. From a young age, West was fascinated with how things worked and enjoyed tinkering. “If I had a screwdriver and a pair of pliers, anything that could be opened was in danger. I had this need to know what’s inside,” he said. At age 12, he took a job alongside his cousin installing electrical wiring in homes in rural Virginia. While plugging in an old radio he had been tinkering with, he received a painful and enlightening lesson: an electric shock turned on his unending fascination with electricity. “After that, I knew I needed to learn everything I could about it.”

Shortly after graduating high school in the late 1940s, West enrolled at Hampden University as a pre-med student. His parents urged him to study medicine, as they worried about future job prospects. At the time being an African American scientist in the South was difficult due to the institutionalized racism of the Jim Crow laws. While studying, he was drafted by the Army during the Korean War, where he received a Purple Heart. His time in the service had a profound effect on him, galvanizing him into continuing education, on his terms. West now knew he had to follow his passion despite his family and society’s concerns, enrolling at Temple University in Philadelphia to study physics.

Rejected from study groups due to his race to only be invited into their circles when he took it upon himself to solve complex problems alone that the groups couldn’t solve. Physics became the conduit that would lead to an opportunity for a summer internship at Bell Labs—a legendary New Jersey-based laboratory that’s been mentioned in other Luminaries careers. West would soon add to that legacy. Bell Labs especially attracted him at the time they were one of few scientific institutions that were open to hiring minorities, a rare occurrence during segregated times. “It was the fact that there were other people who looked like me that I wanted to be like when I grew up,” West said.

While an intern, West found “Link Hawkins” as an inspiration and mentor. Walter Lincoln Hawkins was the first African American member of the technical staff at Bell in 1945. This was monumental for the time as this was two years before Jackie Robinson made history as the first African American accepted into Major League Baseball, which is often seen as a pivotal moment in American race relations.

Still only a student intern, West noticed a problem: “How do things work; why is it possible to do some things and not others?” Recording devices, phones, radios, et cetera, were clunky, sounded garbled, and expensive. West remembers that on average the cost was $2,000 for a decent device; equivalent to today’s rate of purchasing power of more than $20,000!

West had become quite the audiophile and acoustician, all stemming from that jolt of curiosity those many years ago, and saw this as a worthy challenge. During his internship, he learned the value of mentorship, crossing paths and collaborating with anyone he could, He took turns mentoring his fellow colleagues—all the while gaining momentum that would inspire him to begin the design of what would become his magnum opus.

West received his bachelor’s degree in 1957. Upon graduating, West was offered a position at Bell, quickly resuming work on his project: the Electret microphone.

He soon after met and befriended Gerhard M. Sessler, beginning what would become a long-running partnership collaborating for years on his “student” project. The two became inseparable in their efforts; “We were always teased that when we were together, don’t even try to talk to them! They were in their own world!” Together they toiled for years on the project and after much effort in 1962, they invented and patented the world-changing Foil Electret Microphone. This type of condenser microphone changed how we hear the world forever.

It was exactly as West had envisioned: a more compact, durable, highly sensitive, and inexpensive microphone than anything produced previously. The duo coined “Electret” which stems from the combo of terms, electrostatic and magnetic. This microphone uses a thin foil material that has been permanently charged, eliminating the need for an external power source.

This has ever-expanding applications remaining a vital rooting component in the advancement of telecommunications — from Alexa and Siri answering your inquiries of the weekly forecast, to your tablet that syncs to your smartwatch reminding you that the meeting starts in a minute, even down to your gaming headphones helping you coordinate with your team in a Call of Duty match. The Electret Microphone helps you accomplish your daily tasks with all these items!

The revolutionary technology was widely adopted in 1968. Since then, roughly two billion microphones are produced yearly; the patent has been the basis for a staggering 90% of all microphones used for communications.

On what drives his perpetuity, Dr. West says, “Curiosity, curiosity…curiosity and curiosity!” This unending curiosity assisted in leveraging his positioning, building to gift others opportunities he was snubbed for early on.

He never wavered in collaboration, mentoring, and being mentored by colleagues from various departments throughout Bell all in the pursuit of reconciling knowledge. West said, “Mentoring is very important for you both ways; each of you should have a mentor who’s above you in terms of your education process and each of you should be a mentor to people below you. In that process, I mentor and am being mentored by many.”

Being a proponent for racial equality and diversification, advocating Bell to increase opportunities for minorities in STEM, he helped launch a summer minority research program. He co-founded A.B.L.E (African American Body of Laboratory Employees). “The program helped to graduate 500 PhDs from underrepresented minorities and women. We worked for each other; we helped each other advance in the system. This group helped make substantial contributions to telephony and communications.”

West retired from Lucent Technology (Bell) in 2001. For his years of dedication and integrity, he earned the organization’s highest honorary title, “Distinguished Fellow at Bell Labs.” Not one to be satisfied with holding more than 60 U.S. patents and 200+ foreign patents, he naturally transitioned to academia, taking a role as a research professor at Johns Hopkins University. His daughter, Ellington West, one of his four children, carries his legacy forward. She is the CEO and co-founder of Sonavi Labs, specializing in medical devices and software. Harnessing the power of AI, she’s determined to make her mark in the field of telecom, just as her father did at Bell.

In 2007, President George W. Bush awarded West the National Medal of Technology. At age 91, West is currently on the board of the Ingenuity Project, which provides Baltimore students with accelerated math and science courses. He has also advocated for Johns Hopkins to make greater efforts to recruit and train outstanding minority students in the sciences.

An African American man is responsible for the devices in everyone’s pocket and yet few know the story. To reiterate, consider those daily conversations you’ve had with your loved ones, partners, and co-workers just wouldn’t be possible without Dr. West’s years of dedication to telecommunication. In his daughter Ellington West’s words, “One of the most difficult things about my father’s success has been the lack of acknowledgment on a global scale, and I think it’s an unfortunate reality that so many black and brown inventors and innovators face because… who are we working to emulate?”

In Dr. West’s words, “Retirement has never been in the picture for me so far, primarily because I enjoy what I do, and going to work is truly a pleasure.” Through his work and inventions, West has helped to transform our society and improve our lifestyle. The electret microphone is arguably one of the most important pieces of technology ever developed. Dr. West has earned the title of Luminary and we should honor this amazing inventor who has shaped a huge part of how we communicate.

A list of some of his accolades:

• National Inventor’s Hall of Fame 1999 inductee
• National Medal of Technology 
• Distinguished Fellow at Bell Labs.
• Inventor of the Year – State of NJ.
• Two Purple Hearts were earned during his time in the Army.
• National Academy of Engineering.
• Benjamin Franklin Medal in Electrical Engineering.
• George Stibitz trophy from AT&T.
• John Scoot Award, Acoustical Society of America – President.
• Honorary doctorates – from multiple universities including Michigan State, NJ Institute of Technology, Princeton, and more!

And of course, there is more to the story of “The Black Edison”, Dr. James Edward Maceo West, which we may revisit in the future. A curious young man from the rural south to have become a hero for generations of scientists. A true icon and role model for the telecom industry and for now, this concludes this month’s feature of Luminaries in Telecom. Please feel free to add to the conversation! Have you heard of Dr. James Edward Maceo West before? What did you take away from his unwavering empowerment in facing adversity and his passion for science? Sound off in the comments below with any fun facts/specifics that may have been missed, or any suggestions about any movers and shakers in telecom history you think deserve a feature send a message to [email protected].

To end with my favorite quote by Dr. West, “Failure is an accepted process in discovery If I don’t fail every once in a while, I’m not working hard enough.” We at NJFX hope you’ve gleaned a bit of inspiration to take with you through the rest of your week2