The Interface

A conversation with Mike Matusik, Global Operations Director for Amphenol Advanced Sensors.  Mike has been with Amphenol for 10 years after starting his career in the automotive industry.  We talk about growing up in a hard-working, middle-class family in the Midwest and the life-long values he inherited.  We talk about learning from incredible mentors in the automotive industry, then the decision...

In this episode of The Interface, I speak with Lisa Pilcher, Human Resources Manager for Amphenol Procom in the UK.  Lisa has been with Procom almost two years after spending her entire career working for Sainsbury’s, one of the largest supermarket chains in the UK.  We talk about growing up in the same company and moving up the ranks over the years.  We talk about the differences between human re...

A conversation with Tom Bliznik, Business Development Director for the Amphenol Industrial Products Group.  Tom has been with Amphenol for about two years and resides in Michigan.  We talk about his unique approach to successfully organizing virtual sales meetings for the AIPG team last month for hundreds of employees.  We talk about the previous work assignments that had him living in wildly dive...

A brief update on the first year, and first 50 episodes, of The Interface Podcast. Thankfully, this podcast shows no sign of slowing down. As was said in the very first episode, “We have thousands of people who work at Amphenol, each with a unique story, and this is our chance to connect with them.” We’ve barely scratched the surface in telling the story of Amphenol’s greatest resource – our peopl...

A conversation with Mark Tacea, Western Regional Sales Manager for the Amphenol Military & Aerospace group. Mark has been with Amphenol for 30 years, but spent much of his childhood in Sidney, NY as his father worked for Bendix prior to its being acquired by Amphenol. We talk about playing with connectors from his Dad’s sample kits as a child, we talk about the impact of a large factory in a small...

A conversation with Ovetta Hobson, Director of Engineering and Product Development for Amphenol Tecvox in Madison, AL. Ovetta has been with Tecvox for 9 years after working in the automotive industry in the Huntsville area. We talk about her father encouraging her to become an engineer at an early age. We talk about her time with Chrysler and Continental and the many roles she had to assume over t...

A conversation with Steve Soldinger, long-time Director of Operations for Amphenol Aerospace in Sidney, NY. Steve is retiring at the end of June after 39 years with Amphenol and we go through his career with the company. We talk about first coming to Amphenol after his Army service, then moving steadily through the ranks. We talk about his work philosophy, his team-first approach to leadership, re...

A conversation with Bill Gray, AICC Global Business Development Director for the Industrial Markets. Bill has been with the company since 2005 after being a long-time customer and fan of Amphenol at his previous company. We talk about the various roles he’s held, including starting up a new sales team for Amphenol Commercial Products and the challenge of being General Manager of Amphenol Canada’s...

A conversation with Scott Manahl, Sales Director of the Storage Initiative for the Amphenol ICC group. Scott has been in sales for over 30 years, mostly with Amphenol and we talk about his extensive experience of working out of his home office. He and I talk about setting boundaries, being flexible, and making sure to find some buffer, or decompression, time throughout the day when working from ho...

A conversation with Gary Routledge, EMEA Region Engineering Manager for Amphenol Backplane and System Integration. Gary has been with Amphenol since 2011, first at Amphenol TCS before moving to ABSI. We talk about the challenges of working on custom IT/Datacom designs that can take years to come to fruition. We talk about utilizing the vertical integration of Amphenol to help him with backplane de...

A conversation with Erik Thijssen, Senior RF Engineer for Amphenol Antenna Solutions in France. Erik has been with Amphenol since 2013. We talk about his eclectic work background, from horticulture to a chocolate making factory to eventually, the antenna industry. We talk about learning about antennas without any formal education, we talk about moving to Thailand for work and falling in love with...

A new conversation with Adam Norwitt, Amphenol’s President and CEO, as we both work remotely from our home offices during the current COVID-19 outbreak. We talk about the state of Amphenol after a few months of our work and personal lives changing so dramatically. We talk about the continued lessons learned from our Chinese facilities as we progress in both Europe and North America and how that he...

A conversation with Marc Wetsig, General Manager of Amphenol IPC in Endwell, NY. Marc has been with Amphenol for 16 years and served in a number of sales, marketing, and business development roles before heading IPC. We talk about how he and his team have been dealing with the effects of the Coronavirus pandemic on his business and how their facility in China helped them prep for what to expect in...

A conversation with Sabrina Xie from Amphenol Canada and Brad Wolfe from the Amphenol Military and Aerospace Group as together we, along with many others in Amphenol, continue to work from home as the result of the worldwide coronavirus pandemic. These special editions are meant to share this experience with one another and to get a quick glimpse into what it’s like to work from home – the good, t...

A conversation with Jemila Saleh, a Buyer in the Purchasing Department for Amphenol Aerospace in Sidney, NY. Jemila has been with Amphenol for 2 years and her story of how she eventually came to work at Amphenol is one you’ll never forget. Jemila was born and raised in the small African country of Eritrea which borders the Red Sea, near Sudan and Ethiopia. She details her harrowing, years-long jou...

Another special edition of The Interface where I chat with Perry Vandepeer from Amphenol Limited in the UK, Brandy Gosselin from Times Microwave Systems, and Braden Ishaug from the Amphenol Mil/Aero engineering center in Pasadena, CA as together we, along with many others in Amphenol, continue to work from home as the result of the worldwide coronavirus pandemic. These special editions are meant t...

A conversation with Adam Norwitt, Amphenol’s President and CEO, as we both work remotely from our home offices during the current COVID-19 outbreak. We talk about the early days of the outbreak in China and how our amazing leadership team there helped lead the way for how the rest of the corporation responded, we talk about balancing the entrepreneurial management style of Amphenol with the need f...

Another special edition of The Interface where I chat with Catey Cavender from Amphenol Pcd, Lacey Weiss from Amphenol’s corporate headquarters, and Franco Minatel from Amphenol Canada as together we, along with many others in Amphenol, adjust to working from home as the result of the worldwide coronavirus pandemic. These special editions are meant to share this experience with one another and to...

In this special edition of The Interface, I chat with Kelley Nall from SV Microwave and Jeremy Williams and Megan Kinter from Amphenol Aerospace, as together we adjust to working from home as the result of the worldwide coronavirus pandemic.  While a number of our factories are still manufacturing products, many of our employees, who are capable of doing their jobs from home, are adjusting to this...

A conversation with Sean Zimmer, Engineering Manager for Amphenol Aerospace in Mesa, AZ. Sean worked at Amphenol Aerospace in Sidney, NY for four years, most recently as Manufacturing Improvement Supervisor, before becoming one of the first employees at the brand new facility in Arizona. We talk about the daily challenges and lessons learned while helping start a brand-new Amphenol facility. We ta...

A conversation with Kurt Whitcomb, Director of Marketing and Product Engineering for Amphenol Printed Circuits in Nashua, NH. Kurt has been with Amphenol for 19 years. We briefly talk about the Coronavirus pandemic and its effect on APC's business. We talk about what a printed circuit board actually is, how they're designed and manufactured, and the challenges to building them. We talk about the u...

A conversation with Mark Joseph, Business Development Manager for the Amphenol Military and Aerospace Group. Mark is based out of New Jersey and has been with Amphenol for over a year. He and I mainly talk all things Navy as we exhibited at the AFCEA West Navy Show in San Diego, CA this week. We talk about his work in trying to increase Amphenol's share in the Navy market. We talk about how some o...

A conversation with Tom Czernecki, Global Operations Director at Amphenol TCS in Nashua, NH. Tom has been with Amphenol for 14 years and with TCS for almost 3 years. We talk about the challenges of leading a global operations team where the majority of the manufacturing is not in Nashua and how different it is from his previous work at Amphenol Aerospace. We talk about his tremendous work in Sidne...

A conversation with Gordon Vinther, General Manager of Ardent Concepts in Hampton, NH. Gordon founded Ardent Concepts in 2003 and the business was acquired by Amphenol in 2018. We talk about the events that led to him taking a leap of faith and forming his own company based on his developments in compression mount connector technology. We talk about the challenges of leading his small team in the...

A conversation with Jared Sibrava, High Speed Solutions Business Unit Director for Amphenol Aerospace in Sidney, NY. Jared has been with Amphenol for 8 years after spending time learning the industry while working for Lockheed Martin and Curtiss Wright. We talk about his early desire to be a pilot in the Air Force and how he found his love of engineering from an influential high school teacher. We...