Dave Hess, technical manager for LAN standardization with Berk-Tek's parent company Nexans Inc., recently received the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) 1906 Award. The IEC presents the award annually to select individuals to honor their work developing IEC international standards. Hess received the award from Professor Lauri Halme, who chairs IEC Technical Committee (TC) 46. According to the IEC, TC 46's scope is "to establish and maintain standards for the terminology, design, characteristics, related test methods and requirements for quality assessment of metallic conductors, wires, waveguide, RF connectors, RF and microwave passive components and accessories for analog and digital transmission systems and equipment for communications networks and cabling." Hess was honored for his work developing the subcommittee SC46C, which is explicity focused on defining balanced twisted-pair cable transmission properties, such as crosstalk and impedance, as well as physical material properties specific to these copper cables.
A support group within the Telecommunications Industry Association (TIA) nominated Hess for the award. He chairs the U.S. National Committee for the IEC standard, corresponding to TIA-568 standards, which is incorporated into the ISO 11801 standard specifying general-purpose telecommunications cable systems.
Nexans' vice president of emerging technologies and technical director, Eric J. Lawrence, noted, "Standards have one main goal - to become the de facto of the industry. Through Dave's work on standards bodies both nationally, such as TIA, and internationally, including ISO/IEC and IWCS [International Wire and Cable Symposium], he has significantly contributed to defining present and future Ethernet applications utilizing twisted-pair copper cabling. This award is well-deserved as his tireless efforts have benefitted the entire cabling industry, and also have a direct effect on cable design development at Berk-Tek and Nexans."
Note: In January 2011, Dave Hess delivered a presentation entitled "The Standards Scene" as part of a web seminar called "Twisted-Pair Cabling and Higher-Than-10G Transmission." You can view the seminar here.