Heard in the Channel: TTI’s Knight named ECIA chairman

Following its recent Executive Conference in Chicago, the Electronic Components Industry Association announced its new board of directors for 2013. Michael Knight, senior vice president for the Americas at distributor TTI, Inc., was elected chairman and Blair Haas of Bud Industries was named chairman-elect. Completing the executive committee are Jim Bruorton of Kemet; Paul Buckley, Newark element14; John Denslinger, Murata; Perry Fox of Tonar Industries; and Dave Norris, president of manufacturer representative firm Norris & Associates.

ECIA also elected a slate of manufacturers, distributors and representatives as directors. Manufacturer members include: Sid Kalentar, Bourns; Jim Kaplan, Cornell Dubilier; Jim Matthews, Corning; Rick Dwyer, Intel Corp.; Brian Hauge, Molex; Jeff Thomson, ON Semiconductor; Greg Jerrehian, Phoenix Contact; Phillip Gerrard, TE Connectivity; and Joel Smejkal, Vishay. Distributor directors include: Lee Davidson, Allied Electronics; Alan Bird, Arrow Electronics; Chuck Kostalnick, Avnet Electronics Marketing; Mark Larson, Digi-Key Corp.; Lindsley Ruth, Future Electronics; Eric Max, The Genie Group; Kip Poncher, Hawk Electronics; Glenn Smith, Mouser Electronics; and Frank Flynn, Sager Electronics. And manufacturer representative directors are: Paul Nielsen, Brainard-Nielson Marketing; Bob Walsh, Coakley, Boyd & Abbett; Jim Harper, Harper & Two; Robert Logan, Kruvand Associates; Mike Swenson, Mel Foster Company; Mark Conley, O’Donnell Associates North; and Craig Anderson, Sumer, Inc.

ECIA met in late October for its annual Executive Conference, held at the Intercontinental Chicago O’Hare. The meeting took place just as Hurricane Sandy hit the Northeast, causing some East Coast attendees and speakers to miss the event. In the aftermath, many companies were stepping up to the plate to support the Hurricane victims, many of whom lost or sustained severe damage to their homes and businesses. Some residents in New York and New Jersey remained without power this week. Allied Electronics, for one, donated $10,000 to the American Red Cross Disaster Relief Fund to support the recovery efforts. The storm affected Allied’s local offices, but no employees were harmed, the company said.

"Our employees, suppliers and customers are like family," said company president Lee Davidson. "Our thoughts and prayers are with everyone affected, and we want to help relief efforts in any way possible."

Other recent headlines include:

Avnet Electronics Marketing received a Transaction Level Operational Excellence Award at the FY13 Roundtables Conference hosted by Microsoft Licensing, G.P. Avnet EM was chosen out of the North American field of top Microsoft partners for delivering market-leading operational excellence supporting Microsoft technology.
Avnet EM’s parent company, Avnet, Inc., was recognized for the fourth consecutive year on Newsweek’s Green Rankings list, which compares the largest publicly traded companies in the United States on environmental performance. Other industry companies that made the list of 500 U.S. firms include Texas Instruments, No. 48; TE Connectivity, No. 91; and Arrow Electronics, No. 330.
TTI, Inc. was recognized by National Instruments as one of the company’s top 21 performing suppliers in 2012. In addition, TTI received recognition for best on-time delivery for 2012.
IBM announced the release of new software to help organizations build smarter products. IBM Engineering Lifecycle Manager provides searching, querying, viewing and impact analysis across multiple engineering disciplines, offering a more holistic view of projects so that organizations can make better design decisions by identifying potential conflicts and variables that could delay the project and cause cost overruns.

In still other news, supply chain companies are making headlines with new distribution agreements:

Avnet Electronics Marketing signed a new distribution agreement with Measurement Specialties, Inc., which designs and manufactures sensors and sensor-based systems under the MEAS brand. The agreement adds to Avnet EM’s portfolio of packaged sensors for industrial, medical, defense/aerospace, test and measurement, and transportation customers.
Digi-Key signed a global distribution agreement with Fremont Micro Devices USA, supplier of Serial EEPROM and energy-efficient power management integrated circuit products.
Element14 announced a new deal with Pi Face Digital, a new easy-to-use board that allows the Raspberry Pi computer to control and sense physical devices such as lights, motors and sensors.
Future Energy Solutions, a Future Electronics business, announced the addition of the Renesas RL78 microcontroller to its Energy Harvesting Platform.
Premier Farnell announced a new global franchise agreement with Lattice Semiconductor, provider of innovative, low cost, low power FPGA and power management design solutions.