Focus on: John Barteld
John Barteld is the CEO/director of the IWCS (International Wire and Cable Symposium), the leading global forum for the exchange of technical information among suppliers, manufacturers, researchers, and end-users about developments in materials, processes, and products for data and energy connectivity systems. Furthermore, the IWCS is dedicated to providing scholarships to up and coming engineers interested in the interconnect industry. John has held senior management positions in leading cable manufacturing companies, including Pirelli Cables, now part of Prysmian, and Draka. He has held both international and domestic assignments. John’s depth of knowledge and passion for teaching business at the college level has made him the ideal leader for the IWCS.

John Barteld, CEO/Director
Company name and location: IWCS Inc., Maryland
Previous industry positions: Vice president/general manager, Marine and Offshore, Draka; Managing director, Draka Middle East; Vice president, marketing, Draka North America; Director general, International Cablemakers Federation (ICF); Vice president, marketing, Pirelli Cables North America (Prysmian)
Accomplishments you’re proud of: As one of ICF’s founding committee members in the early 1990s, I took the chief executive position in the early days of the organization. I established a firm base for that organization through recruitment of members and solicitation of industry support. I was asked to take over the leadership of the IWCS after the “implosion” of the communications industry early in the 2000s. Today, the organization has a sound foundation, allowing it to make a commitment to scholarship programs, and invest in the future.
First job: Sales representative for a division of IBM in the late 1960s
Favorite website: CNBC. Guess I am a business news junkie!
The last book I read: Next Generation Business Strategies by Stuart L. Hart, in preparation for the fall semester of teaching. I have been teaching on a part-time basis at York College in Pennsylvania for the past five years. The challenges of teaching keep me reading and studying the latest bodies of thought in business matters.
Why did you choose this industry for your profession? The industry chose me. I was disillusioned with being an independent businessman after struggling with a startup in the mid-1970s, and I saw an ad in the New York Times for a marketing manager at General Cable Corporation in New Jersey. Six months after I started, the division was sold to Pirelli, and I stayed for 20 years.
If I knew then what I know now: I would have worked harder in my education and achieved a technical degree, balanced by an MBA. I was a business major through undergraduate and graduate studies, and I have always regretted not having a better understanding of technology.
The best advice anyone ever gave me was: My erstwhile boss and now dear friend from the Draka days, Garo Artinian, always challenged me to think outside the box. I am still too disciplined to be really effective at taking that advice, but it seems that every worthwhile solution is one that requires creative thinking.
What trend in the industry is affecting your job and what would you like to do about it? Something that I see in the industry, and in the students that I face each semester, is a completely revised manner of communicating. Industry people appear to be so busy — and perhaps overwhelmed — with the expectations of a lean environment that they do not have the time to engage, and are looking for “quick” data. The days of reflection and even debate seem to be gone. With students, the modern means of communication allow them to avoid human interaction altogether. That concerns me, and raises doubts about the durability of our traditional means in industry to share ideas and technology. Observing this phenomenon, those of us in industry service organizations must continuously change and update our formats to assure that the next generation is still in our audience. That requires that we often have to leave our own comfort zones and accept the inevitable “progress” around us.
Other comments: Gwenn, my dear wife of nearly 30 years, our children, and I have led charmed lives through my career with the wire and cable industry. Twice we were privileged to live outside of the U.S., through assignments based in Europe and the Middle East. Life has been interesting, stimulating, and certainly challenging during my 35 years in our industry...and I wouldn’t change a thing!