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7/3/2022 - GEON Performance Solutions announced that it has acquired Cary Compounds, LLC, which is based in Manalapan, New Jersey, and will see its assets consolidated into Cary manufacturing campuses to best service the geographic needs of its customers.

A press release said that the Cary name has had a good reputation for its quality and high-end formulas dating back to when Ken Cary started the business in 1999. “Charlie Cary and the team have built on that reputation in the wire and cable industry, with exceptional formulary, customer service and manufacturing expertise as its key differentiators,” said GEON CEO Tracy Garrison. “We look forward to using that same personalized service that our Cary customers value as we introduce an expanded portfolio of highly engineered polymer solutions offered by GEON.”

“We have been watching GEON expand and evolve in the marketplace and are pleased the tradition of quality and excellence built by the Cary team will now live on in GEON,” said Charlie Cary. “This is an exciting day for wire and cable manufacturers and our employees who will enjoy a strong competitive advantage with GEON’s strong culture and global leadership position.”

GEON is a global leader in the formulation, development, and manufacture of performance polymer solutions. It has 1,000 global associates and 11 world-class manufacturing plants with headquarters in a western suburb of Cleveland, Ohio. It is a portfolio company of SK Capital Partners, a private investment firm with a disciplined focus on the specialty materials, specialty chemicals, and pharmaceuticals sectors.

Last modified on July 3, 2022

7/3/2022 - SubCom’s cable installation vessel, the CS Durable, landed the IRIS Subsea Telecoms Cable System (IRIS) at Thorlakshofn beach in Iceland on May 23.

Per a report at SubCom’s website, the landing signifies the commencement of the marine installation of the IRIS cable system that Farice has been developing since 2019. During the summer months, SubCom’s CS Durable will lay the cable south from Iceland to Galway, Ireland, with final splice and completion of marine work planned for mid-August 2022.

Marine survey of the entire route was done by Farice in 2020 and 2021. SubCom completed the final design, preparation work, and manufacturing of the system during 2021-2022. The cable installation progressed at some 20-200 km per day with burial or surface lay from Iceland to Ireland. The target burial depth of the cable was 1.5 m beneath the seabed in water depth of up to 1,500 m.

Designed as a six-fiber pair trunk with a total system capacity of 108 Tbps (each fiber pair delivers 18Tbs), IRIS will be approximately 1,700 km in length and connect southwest of Iceland to Ballyloughane Strand in Galway, Ireland. The cable was made at SubCom’s plant in Newington, New Hampshire.

The IRIS system will be ready for service in the beginning of 2023. It will be the third submarine fiber optic cable system connecting Iceland with Europe, providing further redundancy in telecom connection, with low latency connections around 10.5 ms, between Reykjavík and Dublin.

Farice, a connectivity provider owned by the Icelandic Government, owns and operates two submarine cable systems that connect Iceland to Europe: FARICE-1 and DANICE. The newest cable system will improve the diversity of adequate connections to support the continued growth of Iceland’s modern community and international business environment.

Last modified on July 3, 2022

7/3/2022 - Last year, JDR announced plans to build a new high-voltage U.K. cable plant subject to final agreements. That path just got a lot closer to completion when the project was approved by councilors on the Strategic Planning Committee of the Northumberland County Council (NCC).

A press release said that NCC Deputy Council Leader Richard Wearmouth reported that the project has its full support. “We’re absolutely delighted to be welcoming one of the most advanced subsea cable manufacturing facilities in the world into the county. This brand-new facility will focus on renewable energy products and services, which is crucial towards the county’s carbon neutral plans.”

Plans call for construction to begin this year, with the opening set for 2024. It will create up to 207 high-quality local jobs on completion and safeguard 270 jobs at JDR’s existing facilities. Part of the initial project investment, estimated at £130 million, will come from a grant from the BEIS Offshore Wind Manufacturing Investment Support (OWMIS) scheme. JDR and TFK plans to raise the remaining funding with support expected from financial institutions and U.K. Export Finance.

The new facility is the first stage of JDR’s plans to expand its product portfolio to support the growing global renewable energy market, adding high-voltage export and long length array cables to its existing capacity and product capabilities. Further stages of the development could result in over 400 staff working at the site, with supplied products complementing JDR’s existing capacity provided by the company’s Hartlepool and Littleport U.K. manufacturing centers.

When complete, the facility will include a new catenary continuous vulcanization (CCV) line, making it the only facility in the U.K. capable of full start-to-finish manufacturing of high voltage subsea cables for offshore wind farms to support the growing global renewable energy market. It will be located on the 16-hectare site of the former coal-fired Blyth power station in Cambois in the northeast of England. It is set to feature a 47.5-m high vertical laying-up machine tower and a 45-m high CVC tower along with cable testing and storage facilities. Construction is due to start in the third quarter of this year and finish in early 2024.

Last modified on July 3, 2022

7/3/2022 -  Etihad Etisalat Company (Mobily) has signed a strategic Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Telecom Egypt to build the first submarine cable system to directly connect the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia to Egypt.

Per multiple media reports, the MoU was signed in Riyadh by Eng. Salman Al-Badran, CEO of Mobily, and Adel Hamed, Managing Director, and CEO of Telecom Egypt. The agreement explores various new ways to connect international capacity to Europe in the west, through Telecom Egypt’s network, and to the GCC in the east, through Mobily’s network, which is made possible by expanding the two companies’ networks and connecting them to neighboring countries.

The new cable system aims to meet the rising communication traffic and the large demand for such services between KSA and Egypt.

“By adopting cutting-edge technologies, we continue to expand our infrastructure and scale our capabilities across the KSA and the wider region,” said Salman Al-Badran, CEO of Mobily. “We are confident that our strategic partnership with Telecom Egypt will help achieve our goals.”

The investment allows Prysmian to rapidly transition the Jackson plant to optical cable and increase the production efficiency in other facilities across the region. Prysmian Group North America has 28 manufacturing facilities, eight distribution centers and six R&D centers. The investment also will enable digital inclusion in local communities across North America while supporting the needs of Prysmian’s customers.

Last modified on July 3, 2022

7/2/2022 - 

Christine Lovett has joined Fil-Tec as director of business development for the company’s Wire and Cable division. She has nearly 25 years of global experience in the wire and cable industry. Prior to joining Fil-Tec, she served as business development and product manager at LLFlex where she oversaw growth and product life cycle of their armoring and shielding products for the wire and cable industry. Before that she worked for more than 18 years at Sonoco Products Company and Zumbach Electronics Corporation in various wire and cable technical and commercial roles. She holds an MBA degree from The University of Memphis and a B.S. degree in business administration and management from Marist College. Based in Hagerstown, Maryland, Fil-Tech sells yarns to fields that include wire and cable.

David Hawker was promoted to director of engineering for Cerrowire. A WAI Past President (2017), he joined the company as a plant manager in March 2021. Prior to that he had worked for 32 years for Nexans, where he started out in 1987 as an engineering manager and served in roles with increasing responsibility, his last being vice president and general manager of the Energy Division North America of Nexans. Based in Hartselle, Alabama, and a Marmon/Berkshire Hathaway company, Cerrowire is a copper wire manufacturing company with plants in Alabama, Georgia, Indiana and Utah.

Q8Oils has promoted Andrew Turner to global technical sales manager - wire & rolling at Q8Oils. He joined the company in 2003 as a development chemist, and was promoted to product manager in 2007, and became technical manager - Americas in 2008. In 2010, he became a research scientist metalworking for Kuwait Petroleum Research and Technology B.V. (part of Q8 Research), then was named technical sales and logistics manager - American in 2012, prior to his latest promotion. Prior to Q8, he worked five years for Croda Application Chemicals. He holds a chemistry degree from Sheffield Hallam University. A global supplier of oils, Q8Oils serves industries that include wire and cable production.

Kathy Beaudoin was promoted to director of sales operations at Comtran Marmon ITF. She joined the company in 2005 as national sales director, and was named director of sales operations in 2017. She began her career in sales in 1989 at Madison Cable, where she worked for 10 years. She then worked for six years for Century Electronics, General Dynamics Network Systems, DocuServe and ACT Electronics before joining Comtran. Based in Attleboro, Massachusetts, Comtran manufactures cable and system solutions for a variety of applications, including structured cabling, fire safety, circuit integrity and transit communications.


Bartell Machinery Systems has named William Cacciapouti as its sales manager for wire and cable. He previously was East Coast regional sales manager for Quabbin Wire & Cable Co., Inc., which he joined in 2019. Prior to that he worked for 12 years for Quirk Wire Company as outside sales manager, business development manager, and later as sales manager. Before that, he had worked for nine years as a product marketing manager for C&M Corporation. He holds a BBA degree in finance from Nichols College. Based in Rome, New York, Bartell Machinery Systems supplies rotating technology to the wire and cable industry.

Obituary

Christopher Shannon McGill, a plant manager at Southwire’s factory in Huntersville, North Carolina, died June 2 at age 52 from brain cancer.
McGill joined the company as an operations manager in 2015, and was promoted to plant manager in 2018. He previously had worked for three years for ABB as a production manager and as an operational excellence and process engineering manager. Prior to that he worked as a manufacturing manager for ASTA for two years. A WAI member, he was the president of the Southeast Chapter.|

McGill was known at Southwire as a devoted, caring and smart plant manager. He loved his job, his employees and the company he worked for. He battled the cancer for three years, and worked until the day they sent him home for his own good, just one month before he died. If it were up to him he would have gone every day until then.
Survivors include his wife of 29 years, Tina McGill; four children, Amanda Palomino, Nina Derrick, Taylor McGill, and Trevor McGill; his parents, Jane and Murry McGill; three grandchildren, his brother and sister-in-law, Pat and Alexy McGil; and many nieces, aunts, uncles, cousins and friends.

Last modified on July 2, 2022

7/2/2022 - The Midwest Chapter reports that its annual golf tournament was a day to remember for the field of 68 golfers competing for bragging rights on Wednesday, June 1, at the St. Andrews Golf & Country Club in West Chicago, Illinois.

Kevin Sopczak of Liberty Steel, who heads the logistics for the golf tournament, said that the annual golf tournament had been sorely missed as the last two events were not able to be held, “courtesy” of Covid-19, the ultimate scourge and spoilsport. “It was a great day, and everything went off without issue. The day was cloudy, with a high of about 70 degrees, with no rain. It was a picture perfect day for golf.”

The return to the links was warmly greeted. “This was my first WAI Midwest Chapter outing and I thoroughly enjoyed it,” said John Hauerwas, heating and heat treating product manager, Radyne Corporation. “My playing companions were pleasant and interesting to be with, some good networking took place and the course, food and hospitality were also good.”

Claiming bragging rights with a winning low score of 64 was the Lake Cable team of Jack Rosenthal, Justin Albright, Dan Pelzel and Fabian Arias. Other challenge winners included: Closest to the Pin, Hole #7, Jack Rosenthal (Lake Cable), Hole #12 Justin Albright (Lake Cable) and Hole #15, Jim DeGrado (Worth Steel); Longest Drive, Hole #2, Jon Singer (Transend Logistics), Hole #14, Dan Pelzel (Lake Cable) and Hole #17, Mike Krueger (Traxit); and Accurate Drive, Hole #11, Rick Fisher.

Sopzak also thanked the sponsors for the event, which included the following. Longest Drive: Chemetall, Worth Steel & Machinery, Suzuki-Garphyttan, Micro Wire & Bar; Closest to the Pin: Chemetall (2 holes) and Leggett & Platt; Accurate Drive: Central Wire; and Corporate Hole Sponsors: Ivaco Rolling Mills, Omni Source, Precision Die Technologies, Charter Steel, Redline Metals, Suzuki-Garphyttan, D & S Wire, Fort Wayne Wire Die and Lake Michigan Metals.

The Midwest Chapter event continues to be a key fundraiser for the body’s scholarship program.

Last modified on July 2, 2022

7/2/2022 - The Ohio Valley Chapter (OVC) has set Sept. 22 as the date for its annual golf tournament, which will also include an educational program, all to be held on the same day.

OVC 2022 will again be held at The Kennsington Club in Canfield, Ohio, which the chapter has used multiple times. Tentative guest speakers include: Ed Harrington of Strecker USA, who will discuss butt welding complexities and solutions; Jeff Danaher of Abbott Furnace, who will discuss annealing problems and practices; Jim Miller of Scientific Forming Technology, who will discuss applications of the DEFORM system in drawing process simulation; Brian Rajotte of OEE Data-Watch, who will discuss automation controls with data acquisition systems; B.J. Austin of Ebner Furnaces, who will discuss furnace issues and solutions; and Tim Moury of Verichek, who will discuss material testing equipment and technology.

Contact John Markowski, 203-458-4044, This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or Dave Rascati, 260-750-5736, This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

The other two chapter golf tournaments will also be held in September. Up first is the New England Chapter, which will stage its 28th Annual Golf Tournament & Dinner on Monday, Sept. 12, at the Tunxis Country Club in Farmington, Connecticut. Contact: John Markowski, 203-458-4044, This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

On Thursday, Sept. 22, the Southeast Chapter will hold its annual golf tournament & dinner at the Rock Barn Country Club in Conover, North Carolina. Contact: John Markowski, 203-458-4044, This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

The August issue will have more details on all the tournaments. Registration for all of these golf tournaments is now open at the Association’s online registration system at www.wai.configio.com.

Last modified on July 2, 2022

6/3/2022 - South Korea’s Taihan Cable and Solution has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to establish a joint venture (JV) in the United Arab Emirates (UAE).

Per a report at www.businesskorea, Taihan Cable and Solution announced that it will establish a joint venture in Saudi Arabia to produce ultra-high voltage cables. It will be the first ultra-high voltage cable plant to be built overseas by Taihan Cable and Solution.

The company is partnering with Mohammed Al-Ojaimi Group, a Saudi Arabian EPC company that specializes in power transmission and distribution. The two companies have secured a factory site in a high-tech industrial complex in Riyadh, the capital of Saudi Arabia, for the construction of the factory. The site is owned by Mohammed Al-Ojaimi Group and is adjacent to Saudi Taihan Cable Co., a subsidiary of Taihan Cable and Solution that produces electric equipment.

Taihan Cable and Solution is planning to expand the market for its 380kV ultra-high voltage cables from Saudi Arabia to the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) region including Qatar and Kuwait, and Europe. The company notes that it currently has five production bases: a cable factory and a power equipment factory in Dangjin, South Chungcheong Province of Korea, an HV cable factory in Vietnam, an MV cable factory in South Africa and an electric equipment factory in Saudi Arabia. It is also building a submarine cable plant in Dangjin and an optical cable plant in Kuwait.

Per Wikipedia, Taihan Cable & Solution was established in 1955 as the first wire and cable company in South Korea. It has a manufacturing plant in Gyeonggi-do and Chungcheongnam-do and a research center in Gyeonggi-do as well as overseas offices in South Africa, Democratic Republic of Congo, Vietnam, Hong Kong, Mongolia, the U.S., Canada, United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand and Australia.

Last modified on July 3, 2022

6/2/2022 -

The WAI’s Midwest Chapter just held its 19th Annual Midwest Chapter Golf Tournament & Dinner at the St. Andrews Golf and Country Club, but there are two more scheduled, and plans are being set for a fourth one.

At press time, the Ohio Valley Chapter (OVC) was trying to finalize a 2022 date to hold its annual golf tournament. The goal was to follow up on the successful return to links in 2021, following the cancellation of the official event in 2020 because of Covid. The 2021 event included an educational program. More details will follow as soon as they are set.

What is known are the dates for the New England and Southeast Chapters’ events. Up first is the New England Chapter, which will stage its 28th Annual Golf Tournament & Dinner on Monday, Sept. 12, at the Tunxis Country Club in Farmington, Connecticut. Contact: John Markowski, 203-458-4044,
This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

On Thursday, Sept. 22, the Southeast Chapter will hold its Annual Golf tournament & Dinner at the Rock Barn Country Club in Conover, North Carolina. Contact: John Markowski, 203-458-4044, This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

Last modified on June 2, 2022

6/2/2022 -

The Prysmian Group announced that it plans to invest $30 million in its Jackson plant in Tennessee to change its product mix to all optical fiber to meet the increasing demand for optical fiber broadband connectivity driven by federal and state stimulus packages.

A press release said that Prysmian’s total optical cable investment in North America now stands at $115 million, with the Jackson project adding to the $85 million announced last year. These investments increase Prysmian’s optical fiber capacity in its North American plants and expand its telecom footprint to meet customer demand more efficiently. As the market shifts from legacy copper infrastructure to fiber, Prysmian’s manufacturing facilities are adapting to mirror the shift in technology. The Jackson facility will change from producing copper to optical cable, making it the first plant within the Prysmian Group to be re-tooled to produce a different product.

Jackson will increase Prysmian’s capacity in loose tube and drop cables production, and the employees will learn new skills manufacturing optical fiber and cable that will connect homes and cities. Prysmian is a global leader in developing technology for new, reliable and efficient broadband networks, providing valuable new capacity and options for telecom network operators.

“The demand in North America makes us a strategic market globally, and the best way to meet this need is to produce more optical cables here in the US. This optimizes both the quality of service for our customers and the carbon footprint to build a high-performance infrastructure ready for 5G, smart cities and smart homes,” said Patrick Jacobi, Vice President of Telecom, Prysmian Group North America. “These investments are also a part of our global plan to increase capacity to support the digital transformation with innovative products, like the development of new ultra-broadband fiber optic telecommunication networks.”

The investment allows Prysmian to rapidly transition the Jackson plant to optical cable and increase the production efficiency in other facilities across the region. Prysmian Group North America has 28 manufacturing facilities, eight distribution centers and six R&D centers. The investment also will enable digital inclusion in local communities across North America while supporting the needs of Prysmian’s customers.

Last modified on July 3, 2022

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Madison, CT 06443-2662

P: (203) 453-2777