NEW YORK—Jerry Pearlman, former Zenith Electronics CEO and chairman, is now a hall of famer. Pearlman and the other founding fathers of the HDTV “Grand Alliance” make up the 2016 CT Hall of Fame class.
Jerry Pearlman
Pearlman was the chief architect of Zenith’s digital HDTV strategy and a supporter for the core technologies that would serve as the foundation of the U.S. digital TV broadcast standard. Zenith was one of the companies that joined the “Grand Alliance” in 1993, a coalition of companies seeking to create the best digital TV standard.
Joining Pearlman in this year’s class is other members of the “Grand Alliance,” including Peter Bingham, president of Phillips Laboratories; James Carnes, retired Sarnoff Labs president; Curt Crawford, past AT&T Microelectronics president; MIT professor Dr. Jae Lim; former General Instrument Chairman and CEO Donald Rumsfeld.
CTA President and CEO Gary Shapiro noted that the “Grand Alliance” leaders had to “put aside personal and business interests, working together to formulate an ideal broadcast TV standard.
And, although Jerry was retired by then, the nation’s 2009 transition to all-digital broadcasting is viewed as a noteworthy postscript to his career and an exclamation point to his industry contributions.”
The Consumer Technology Hall of Fame was formed in 2000 by CTA to honor leaders in the consumer technology industry who have shaped and advanced innovation.
