7/8/21  The Chicago Association of Spring Manufacturers, Inc. (CASMI) is re-scheduling SpringWorld 2022 so that it will not conflict with Yom Kippur.

A press release said that the event, which was scheduled to take place Oct. 5-7, 2022, will now take place Oct. 12-14, 2022, at the Donald E. Stephens Convention Center in Rosemont, Illinois. For more details about the event, go to www.casmi-springworld.org.  

7/8/21 DtGV, the German Association for Consumer Studies, has named SIKORA as one of the winners of its SME Innovation Award 2021/2022.

A press release said that the award goes to small and medium-sized companies from Germany “that demonstrate particularly high innovation potential in their segment and/or state.” The award was based on the Corporate Patent Classification (CPC) system. The basic parameter patent number was rounded off by the qualitative moment of the citation frequency and condensed into a score value.

SIKORA, a supplier of measuring technology, was scored as being among the top 10% of all examined SMEs in the CPC main class for instruments.” In the parallel federal state ranking, it was listed as one of the top three companies from Bremen. “This award makes us very proud and confirms the corporate course we have been following since the foundation of the company,” said Sikora CEO Dr. Christian Frank. “Thanks to our inventive spirit and innovation potential, we are able to continuously offer our customers future-oriented technology solutions. Thus, we create the basis for highest customer satisfaction and long-term growth.” 

7/7/21  By the time hurricanes strike, they have official names and landing date so people have a name to a tag all the damage, which will be well chronicled by video. Last year, however, there was a memorable natural disaster, only this one did not have a name, an official starting time or much of anything in the way of widespread media attention. Then again, this avalanche took place at depths as great as 2.8 miles, and the only sign that it had even happened was that two subsea cable systems were KOed.

Per a BBC report, the avalanche, officially called a turbidity current, was initially triggered by a large flood on the Congo River in December 2019. The fast-moving water shifted a vast amount of sand and mud to the Congo Submarine Canyon off the West African coast, but that alone did not cause the avalanche. Early spring tides in mid-January 2020, water pressure in the sediment and low tide triggered the turbidity current. The slide traveled for a full two days, starting out at 11.6 miles/hour then sped up to nearly 18 miles/hour, covering 683 miles across the floor of the Atlantic Ocean, reaching depths there as much as 2.8 miles.

A U.K. team led by Professor Peter Talling discovered the event through sensors in the area that measure current and sediment velocities. The slide damaged two submarine telecommunications cables, the South Atlantic 3/West Africa (SAT-3/WASC) cable and the West Africa Cable System (WACS), knocking out Internet and other data traffic. A French cable-laying vessel, the Léon Thévenin, repaired the cable breaks within two weeks, but the movement of sediment caused more breaks in early 2021.

Talling and his colleagues later wrote a paper (Novel sensor array helps to understand submarine cable faults off West Africa) printed at eartharxiv.org. In it, the professor explained that not all turbidity currents work the same. Some deposit large amounts of sand and mud onto cables, while other slides burrow deep into the seafloor. The Talling team provided some of the first measurements made of cable-breaking sediment flows. He explained how such flows can affect multiple cables simultaneously over large areas, and how deep erosion can damage subsea cables.

Dr. Mike Clare, marine geoscientist at the U.K.’s National Oceanography Centre and advisor to the International Cable Protection Committee, said that the goal was to best understand how to position and reroute cable repair ships into areas where undersea cable is more vulnerable to damage.
More than 99% of all data traffic between continents goes through the global submarine cable network. Participating in the Congo Canyon research was IFREMER (Institut Français de Recherche pour l'Exploitation de la MER) in France and GEOMAR Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research in Germany. The project is co-led from Durham and Angola Cables.

7/7/21  Sad to report, but it was beavers – determined, hard-working creatures – that were the cause of a temporary Internet outage for 900 residents in Tumbler Ridge in northeastern British Columbia.

When a Telus repair crew traced the problem, they found red marking tape on top of a beaver’s den in a local creek. The beavers had dug down more than three feet to the cable, used the tape for their building material, and chewed through 4.5 in. of conduit and fiber cable in multiple locations. Crews had to bring in extra equipment to dig out and expose the rest of the cable to see how far the damage extended. The partially frozen ground hindered their 36-hour repair work. Observed a Telus spokeswoman, it was a “uniquely Canadian disruption!”

As WJI readers know, rats and mice can cause tremendous damage chewing through electrical wires that cause millions of dollars of structural damage, as well as electrical and power outages. According to Working RE Magazine, rats and mice cause 20% of undetermined fires in the United States each year. Rats and squirrels have been caught on video pulling out and chewing on electrical wires in attics. Rodents chew on wires to file down their teeth and to make nesting material. Because rats, mice, chipmunks and squirrels are the most likely suspects for chewing wires, please don’t blame bats, opossum, skunks and armadillos, as they do not engage in such activity. Then again, aside from the armadillos, they are not as lovable as beavers.

7/7/21  Anand Bhagwat was promoted to senior manager - quality and technology at Minova USA. In his new position, he will continue to support daily operations of quality functions, and manage the overall technology group in the Americas region. He will also support the global R&D team on product development. He joined the company in 2011 as manager of the Steel Technology Center. Prior to that, he worked at the Seneca Wire Group from 2000 to 2006 as vice president of quality and technology. Following a three-year stint as managing director of WAI Wire and Cable Services, Ltd., in India, the past WAI president (2005) returned to Seneca in 2011 as plant manager of FENIX, LLC. Based in Georgetown, Kentucky, Minova USA supplies ground support products for the mining, construction and energy industries.

Oman Cables Industry announced that Cinzia Farise is the company’s new CEO. She has been a sales and marketing director in the services and industrial products sector. She joined Italy’s Prysmian Group in 2005, holding a number of positions that included vice president and CEO of Prysmian India. She later served as CEO for Trenord, a large Italian rail company. In 2019, she returned to the Prysmian Group, and was named CEO of the group’s Turkish affiliate. She holds a degree in economics. She replaces Ali Said al Habaj, who left for personal reasons. Based in Rusayl, the Sultanate of Oman, Oman Cables Industry manufactures a wide range of electrical wires.

Victor Muñizn is the new regional manager for Latin America for Proton Products, tasked with leading and developing its sales and services business for measuring equipment in Latin America and the Caribbean. He previously worked for more than 20 years for Beta LaserMike, which is a brand of NDC Technologies, in Latin America as well as the U.S. His career began in 1999 as a senior laboratory engineer for Alcatel in the U.K. He holds a degree from the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya and an MBA from the University of Hull. Based in the U.K., Proton Products offers a wide range of measuring technology for wire and cable.

Remee Wire & Cable has named Marc Stringer as the company’s engineering product manager. He has more than three decades of industry experience in product management, marketing, engineering and related positions throughout his career. Some of his previous employers include General Cable, Belden, Southwire, Coleman, Champlain Cable and TE Wire & Cable. Based in Florida, New York, Remee Wire & Cable manufactures a range of fiber optic and copper cable.

Chroma Color Corporation announced three new employees. Wayne Comeau is the new market development manager. He most recently worked for eight years in the masterbatch industry as a key account manager, focused on custom color concentrates across various strategic markets. Prior to that he worked in numerous molding processes. Bob Mann is a regional account manager for Indiana, Michigan, and key accounts in the Midwestern region. He has 15 years of experience in colorants and additives, and a solid technical background that included roles with increasing responsibilities in color development labs. Tony Tanner is a regional account manager in the Mid-Atlantic region. He most recently was a senior technical account manager with a global pigment and dye manufacturer. He has wide experience in the field. Based in McHenry, Illinois, Chroma Color Corporation is a leading specialty color and additive concentrate supplier for markets that include wire and cable. 

Obituary notice
WJI is sad to report the passing of Ronald “Ron” W. Reed, a past WAI President (2008) who died from cancer on June 24 at age 65. A friend to many, he was a superb Association advocate and volunteer, for which he was named the 2012 winner of the Donnellan Memorial Award. The August issue will have a full obituary.