people

Cofounder of the Optoelectronics Industry Development Association (OIDA)Arpad Bergh has retired as president, with the board of directors electing executive director Michael S. Lebby as his successor. Bergh became president of OIDA in 1991. During his tenure, he helped form the International Coalition of Optoelectronics Industry Associations (ICOIA), which has 10 members in the United States, Europe, the Pacific Rim, and Australia. Lebby, who joined OIDA early last year, has held positions in all aspects of the optoelectronics industry, from R&D to manufacturing to sales and marketing, most recently responsible for corporate and technical strategy at Bookham Technology. Lebby, who is also a member of Lightwave’s editorial advisory board, is expected to continue to foster relations with trade organizations such as OSA, IEEE-LEOS, CPMT, and SPIE. Bergh will continue serving OIDA as President Emeritus.

Telecom industry veteran Bernd Hessehas been appointed vice president of marketing and business development at fiber-optic access solutions developer Novera Optics. Over the 20 years he has been involved in telecom, Hesse founded HB Consulting to provide marketing and business development support to startups, and has worked at such companies as Ericsson, Optunix (now FiberZone Networks), Cisco Systems, Centillium Communications, and Raynet, where he participated in what is claimed to be the first successful PON deployment.

Cortina Systems, a provider of integrated high-speed digital and analog silicon technology, has named Thomas Fosteras vice president of worldwide sales. Foster, whose 20 years in technology sales has included positions at Virata, Hyundai Electronics, Compressions Labs, and IBM/Rolm, was most recently vice president of worldwide sales for Atheros Communications, where he created a sales strategy and established offices in the Asia-Pacific region.

San Jose-based Scintera Inc., the developer of Gigabit Signal Processor semiconductor products for high-speed communications, has appointed Arthur Reidel, previously a partner with Lightspeed Venture Partners, as chief executive officer. Scintera’s founding CEO Abhijit Phanse will continue as company president and will also assume the role of chief operating officer, focusing on product development and market delivery. Reidel has held executive-level positions with technology firms Viewlogic Systems, Sunrise Test Systems, and Weitek Corp.

Jack Bryant has joined broadband-access systems supplier Wave7 Optics as vice president of worldwide sales to help build the company’s momentum in deploying triple-play voice, video, and data services. Prior to his run as president and chief executive officer of Concurrent Computer Corp., which won an Emmy Award for its video-on-demand technology while under his leadership, Bryant’s 23 years in telecom included sales, product management, marketing, engineering, and technical support experience, in positions at Arris, General Instrument, and Scientific Atlanta.