Throughout his career, Andrew Bender has helped integrate several new technologies into society.
es, and success really depends on having a willingness to consider and devise new ways of doing things, because whether it’s the pandemic, or going from paper to digital, if you’re still in your horse drawn carriage, you’re not going to be part of the new society.” Having helped society transition to new technology through his work at companies including Tekelec, NEC Corp., and Hewlett Packard—even working in early iterations of broadband technology at Manhattan-based ThruPoint during Y2K— Bender is now ready to help push the envelope again at DZS. The company recently completed a succession of product launches, including new hardware that transports hundreds of gigabits or terabits of bandwidth and a new transport switch system that aggregates traffic in multi-gigabit fiber optic networks. “Optical broadband going to gigabit, then multi-gigabit, and now 50-100 gigabit into everybody’s home is going to be possible over the coming years, making 5G a reality,” Bender says. Now, it’s time to help the community embrace these new products, while continuing to execute and innovate. “I think we can’t stop,” Bender says. “That’s really the expectation of our customers, and the industry, and the markets. Now, we still need to do some of the hard work of bringing those things into reality—helping customers operationalize, embrace, and implement the technology.” He adds, “It’s one thing to make a product, or a contraption, or demonstrate technology. It’s another to get it deployed out there on a national, or on a global, basis.” His forward focus? “Creating that software-driven network in a nutshell is what we’re going to be focused on for the next several years.”
“IF YOU’RE STILL IN YOUR HORSE-DRAWN CARRIAGE, YOU’RE NOT GOING TO BE PART OF THE NEW SOCIETY.” A N D R E W B E N D E R | DZ S
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T RICIA D’CRU Z, CATALYZ E DALLAS Early in her career as a software engineer, Tricia D’Cruz faced the possibility of the company she worked for going out of business. The now founder and managing director of holding company Catalyze Dallas was serving as software director for North Texas-based telecommunications firm Efficient Networks in the ’90s when flat ethernet cables hit the market, rendering the product her team was working on useless. “We were doing local area networking technology. It was called ATM to the desktop,” D’Cruz says. “You’ve never heard of that, because it’s not a thing anymore.”
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12/13/22 11:56 AM