NASED Life Time Achievement Award

 Ellis Singer (1999)

Charles Anderson (2000)

Rufus Grason (2001)

Rufus Grason honored by NASED with Lifetime Achievement Award

San Diego, CA — Rufus Grason, founder of Grason Stadler, Inc., received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the National Assn. of Special Equipment Distributors (NASED) at a ceremony during the recent AAA convention. Presenting the award, Barbara Kurman, president of organization, stated that “Rufus Grason was chosen for this award as an individual who deeply respects and cares about his work. His accomplishments are many, and his work always focused on helping hearing-impaired individuals, and how to make their lives better.”

Grason began his career working as a student in psychoacoustic lab of Harvard Univ. in the 1940s. In 1949, he founded Grason, Inc., which later became Grason-Stadler, Inc. He was affiliated with the company until 1989.

His accomplishments are well-known to many hearing health care professionals. In 1952, he developed what is recognized by many as the first audiometer. Between the years of 1970 and 1978, he developed five new audiometers and two middle-ear analyzers. Retiring in 1990, he was chairman of the ANSI Standards Committee until 1997, a position his son, Lee Grason, now holds. A past member of the board of directors of the American Speech Language Hearing Assn. (ASHA), Rufus Grason holds four patents.

A reception followed the awards ceremony. Pictured above are Rufus Grason and his wife, Peg.

Gordon  Stowe (2002)
NASED Holds Annual Meeting; Honors Stowe
Philadelphia — The National Association of Special Equipment Distributors (NASED) presented its Lifetime Achievement Award to Gordon Stowe at its annual meeting, held during the recent AAA convention.

In presenting the award, Barbara Kurman, president of NASED, complimented Stowe on “setting a standard of excellence for the profession of special equipment.” Stowe graduated from Northwestern University in 1945 with a BS in electrical engineering. After serving in the Navy, he began his career at the University of Illinois, developing audiological test equipment. In 1956, he formed Gordon Stowe and Associates, where he worked until his retirement in 1990. Stowe thanked NASED for the award and said he was “impressed with NASED for putting authenticity behind calibration.”

The annual business meeting and election of new officers followed the award presentation. Sherman Lord was elected president, Paul Dinice was elected public relations chairman, Jim Schilling as head of business development, and Tim Deshler as membership chairman. Also, Roger Ott was elected treasurer and Lance Brown was elected chair of communications. Barbara Kurman was thanked for her efforts as president for the past several years.

NASED is the only national group dedicated to maintaining levels of standard for hearing testing equipment. Member companies, located throughout the country, employ technicians who are trained and monitored to ensure their knowledge and skills. NASED members must verify the accuracy of their measuring devices, supply documentation, and maintain an ongoing review of calibration methods. The nonprofit trade association was founded on the principle of nationally elevating and codifying the technical proficiencies of member service organizations to meet their service and calibration needs. For more information about NASED members, standards, and criteria, visit www.nased.com.

Ernest Butler (2003)

From the Hearing review
Dell Bloem (2004)
 

NASED Honors Del Bloem
Salt Lake City– At this year’s National Association of Special Equipment Dealers (NASED) annual meeting, held prior to the official start of the annual American Academy of Audiology (AAA) convention, the organization’s Lifetime Achievement Award was presented to Del Bloem. Bloem was previously president and co-founder of ICS Medical before becoming president of GN Otometrics North America when that company purchased ICS. He is now retired.

Founded in 1981, ICS Medical introduced the first commercial computer-based electronystagmography (ENG) in 1984. Since then, ICS has been a leader in computer-based ENG and videonystagmography (VNG) test equipment. Market research from Frost and Sullivan has attributed a 45% worldwide market share to ICS for these products. More recently ICS has introduced evoked potential (EP) technology that can be combined with ENG and videonystagmography products.

At the meeting, Past-President Sherman Lord of Midlantic Technologies Group, handed the reigns of NASED to new President Lance Brown, of Gordon Stowe & Associates. Brown will serve in this capacity for 2 years. He enthusiastically addressed the group and announced that his primary focus will be on service and training issues.

Two new board members were voted into position: Nate Hancock of Medical Technologies Group was elected as Chair of Communications, and Ron Macon of Health Care Instruments was elected as Chair of Public Relations. Paul Dinice of Tele-Acoustics, who formerly held the position of Public Relations, now chairs the Membership Committee

NASED Honors David Kemp 

Dr. David Kemp (2005)

Lance Brown (left) of Gordon Stowe & Associates-Memphis, president of NASED, left, honored David Kemp, PhD, with the Association’s Lifetime Achievement Award at the NASED Annual Meeting which was held in Washington, DC during late-March.

Washington DC — The National Association of Special Equipment Distributors (NASED), the trade organization for distributors of testing instruments for the hearing healthcare industry, honored David Kemp, PhD, with the NASED Lifetime Achievement Award, the Associations highest honor. Kemp is professor of auditory biophysics at the Royal National Throat, Nose, and Ear Hospital in London and is chairman of Otodynamics Ltd. He is credited with the discovery of otoacoustic emissions (OAEs) in 1978. OAE testing has developed into a vital addition for evaluating the auditory pathway and is widely used for diagnostic and screening purposes through a wide range of special testing devices. For more information on NASED and its member companies, visit www.nased.com. 

Gabe Raviv, Ph.D (2006)

Gabe Raviv, Ph.D 2006 Life Time Achievement

A Picture Video tells a thousand words

.Poul B. Madsen (2007)

The Hearing Review
Remembering Poul B. Madsen
(1923-1997)

The Poul Madsen Life Story
(text only)

 NASED Presents Cole with Its Highest Honor

The NASED Lifetime Achievement Award was presented to William Cole (left) by NASED President Lance Brown.

Charlotte, NC—The National Association of Special Equipment Distributors (NASED) held its annual meeting on April 2 in conjunction with AudiologyNOW! NASED President Lance Brown presented the Lifetime Achievement Award to William (Bill) Cole (pictured on left) for his work in hearing aid circuit development, hearing aid testing standards, and test box and real ear measurement systems, and as the founder of Audioscan/Etymonic Design.

Mead Killion, PhD, a fellow engineer and Cole’s friend and colleague, provided a look at Cole’s impressive career, as well as his great impact on hearing aid and testing device technology. Throughout the presentation, Killion pointed out that Cole had a tendency to take up many different projects and humorously insinuated that he had a “hard time holding down a job.”

Cole started his career at Bell Northern Research, which was not far behind Bell Labs in manufacturing the first transistors. Later, at The NASED Lifetime Achievement Award was presented to William Cole (left) by NASED President Lance Brown. NASED Presents Cole with Its Highest Honor Westinghouse Canada, Cole helped design the first hearing aid integrated circuits (IC) with automatic gain control (AGC), a technology that would ultimately be used in millions of hearing aids. He then joined Unitron where he was instrumental in the development of the company’s first directional hearing instrument.

Joining Lin Technology Inc (LTI, which later became Gennum and is now Sound Design Technologies), Cole developed several hearing aid ICs, pre-amplifiers, AGC amplifiers, power output amplifiers, as well as a noise reduction circuit with level-dependent frequency response. According to Killion, about 90% of all hearing aids at one time used LTI components, and Cole’s contributions greatly improved the miniaturization and performance of hearing aids in the1970s and 1980s.

In 1983, Cole founded Etymonic Design in Dorchester, Ontario. Killion says that the two met as old friends at an ASHA meeting that year and exchanged business cards on the convention floor. They were soon laughing: Cole’s new company was named Etymonic Design and Killion’s new company was named Etymotic Research. “We quickly decided that was the least of our worries in starting up a new company, and we would each keep our own names,” says Killion. Cole went on to design one of the first programmable hearing aids for Dahlberg. He also developed the analog input/output for Project Phoenix, the world’s first digital hearing aid that was never launched commercially due to problems unrelated to Cole’s circuit (see Veronica Heidi’s article, “Digitally programmable hearing aids: a historical perspective” in the February 1996 HR). Also developed was an adaptive compression circuit for Telex.

Cole was part of the team of consultants that helped Killion develop the K-AMP circuit—arguably the most successful circuit technology of the 1980s and early 1990s, being employed in about 3.5 million hearing aids.

Cole also focused his attention at Etymonic Design on the development of the Audioscan test equipment. As digital hearing aids became more sophisticated—with digital noise reduction, digital feedback reduction, and multichannel compression circuits controlled by whether or not the hearing aid thought it was speech or noise in that channel—it became virtually impossible for anyone to decide whether the hearing aid was working properly or not. “Bill and his team introduced the revolutionary idea of using speech as the signal to trick the digital hearing aid into giving up its secrets,” says Killion. “If you think that is trivial, consider the extreme example of digital noise reduction: your trusty cell phone. If you try recording the output of a church choir on a cell phone, you will hear an occasional burst of music interrupted by silence as the ‘search and destroy’ noise reduction algorithm decides the music is not speech and shoots it down.

“In any case, the [Audioscan] SpeechMap addition gave us a simple, reliable way to determine how much gain the hearing id was providing for the speech sounds.

“Incidentally,” added Killion with a glimmer in his eye, “he has managed to hold down his present job for 25 years.”

George Frye (2009)

2010 NASED Honors Jerry Laux

NASED HONORS LONG-TIME HEARING JOURNAL PUBLISHER

SAN DIEGO—The National Association of Special Equipment Distributors (NASED) presented its 2010 Lifetime Achievement Award to Jerrold R. Laux, the former publisher of The Hearing Journal (HJ). The award was presented at the association’s annual meeting during Audiology NOW! 2010.

Laux was cited for his contributions to the hearing industry over the nearly 30 years he was with HJ. He entered the field in 1981 when the Laux Company, owned by the three Laux brothers, purchased the Journal. Jerry Laux quickly immersed himself in many aspects of the publication, including advertising sales, business strategy, editorial direction, and circulation and in time became the publisher. Along with the editors who worked with him, he became the face of the Journal—and a very popular and respected figure in the hearing healthcare field. As Lance Brown, the former president of NASED, noted, “Everyone in the industry knows and loves Jerry.”

Although his family sold HJ to Lippincott Williams & Wilkins in 1993, Jerry Laux stayed on as publisher and maintained a proprietary feeling toward the publication.

In introducing his longtime friend and colleague at the awards ceremony, David Kirkwood, editor of HJ, said that Laux’s contributions transcended his role with the publication.

He explained, “HJ and the other trade journals play a unique role in the hearing industry. We connect the suppliers in the industry with the practitioners. We are also advocates for the companies and professionals who provide hearing care.”

Kirkwood added, “This is a noble cause and one that meant a great deal to Jerry. It was why he cared so much, not only about the success of our publication, but also the success of everyone working to help people hear better and lead better lives.

“A caring industry”

In his acceptance remarks, Laux spoke of the special quality, the indefinable “something” of the field he discovered in 1981: “As I got to know this industry and the people in it, it quickly became apparent that this was a very unique industry. I was drawn into an involvement and a dedication to it that I never experienced in other fields. There is a sense of community, a feeling of family in this industry. What is most important is that it is a caring industry.”

He continued, “It is the people in this industry that make all this happen. They all care about their profession and they make you feel welcome to their world.”

In closing, Laux said, “Back in 1981, we at The Hearing Journal began a partnership with the hearing healthcare industry. Not a partnership in the typical business sense. More of a partnership in the sense of common interests and shared goals. Because when you become involved with the people in this industry you become part of that mysterious ‘something,’ that strong unifying force that binds the members of this industry into a remarkable unit, a family unit. It has been a privilege for me to be associated with this industry.”

VETERAN SCHOOL AUDIOLOGIST CITED FOR ACHIEVEMENT

Figure. Jerry Laux, …
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2011 Rufus Lee Grason