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PRESS RELEASE
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Company Background: FiberPlex, Inc. and its innovative Light Viper™
NSCA EXPO, LAS VEGAS, NV, March 19, 2004 — Maryland-based FiberPlex, Inc. was founded in 1987 by company President Bill Linkow and VP of Engineering Harry Oliver, with four other engineering colleagues who shared a long-term vision for the future of advanced data communications technology. Renowned and respected for their early pioneering engineering achievements with nascent fiber optic communications technology, FiberPlex’s engineers easily envisioned numerous real-world applications of this exciting technology for both governmental as well as commercial customers.Inspired by the potential of fiber optics in demanding and often critical applications in both audio as well as data communications, the engineering team built their first fiber optic isolator and waveguide filter in 1987 — the basis for the young company’s first product offerings. Their early mandate and business focus was to design and manufacture state-of-the-art electronic devices and secure, noise-free data transmission systems for the highly sensitive requirements of government and military customers. Today, many of these same FiberPlex “Mil-Spec” products and systems continue to protect the security and integrity of modern communications systems throughout the world.
Since 1987, FiberPlex has continued to focus the company’s now formidable engineering expertise and resources on the creation of sophisticated fiber optic communications devices. The firm’s founders hold key patents for innovative waveguide design and also for cabling through shielded enclosure walls — real-world technical challenges faced by governmental and commercial users alike. FiberPlex’s opto-electronic products allow systems integrators to bridge between several interface standards that may be present in a sophisticated audio or data communications network; their proprietary timing and buffering products help keep complex networks in perfect synchronization despite disparate timing sources. Indeed, FiberPlex audio and data communications products have been in daily use and relied upon by numerous demanding customers for more than 17 years — 24/7, 365. However, FiberPlex’s roots in mission-critical fiber optic communications technology extends even earlier — in fact, nearly two decades prior to the founding of the current company in 1987.
Bill Linkow, an electronics engineer, has an impressive list of design accomplishments that spans nearly four decades. His critically acclaimed work on both the conceptual level and the practical implementation of multiplexers for both single and multi-mode opto-isolators has been crucial to the success of FiberPlex’s products. In addition to his impressive technical background and important engineering contributions to FiberPlex, Linkow also has a keen eye for commerce and is one of the company’s primary business visionaries.
Co-founding engineer Harry Oliver began groundbreaking research and applications work on the very first applications of fiber optic data transmission technology in 1964. Oliver worked with the world’s first light emitting diodes and also collaborated with the first supplier of fiber optic cable, Bausch & Lomb, a world-renowned provider of numerous optical technologies.
Together, Linkow and Oliver (who worked side-by-side at opto-electronics communications firm Versitron for the two prior decades) would be the driving force behind FiberPlex.
In fiber optic’s early days, well before Linkow and Oliver founded FiberPlex, the engineers clearly understood where their innovative secure data communications technology would have traction. Owing to the high costs associated with some of the first available fiber optic components, the now ubiquitous LED’s, “chips” and compact bundles of highly efficient, silicon-based fiber optic light conduits were nearly precious commodities for many years. Only well-heeled military and government customers could afford this technology in its early days. Indeed, these same customers would also provide the essential fuel of commerce for FiberPlex — that is, until now, when the economies of scale for both digital electronics and fiber-optic technologies can be combined and their benefits employed in even broader mission-critical commercial applications, like professional audio.Fast-forwarding to the new millennium, FiberPlex is still pioneering under the guidance of Linkow and Oliver. Buddy Oliver, Harry Oliver’s son, has worked as an engineer for FiberPlex since 1994 and is now the company’s Project Manager for Pro Audio.
Buddy, who holds a Music Degree in audio engineering and is also a recording engineer with successful production credits under his belt, has a passion for sound and music — and the technical background (and one might argue, the genes) to pursue his music and engineering passions, with the full support of FiberPlex’s formidable technical and manufacturing resources. But pursuing his dream to involve FiberPlex in the pro audio business wasn’t quite the easy “slam-dunk” one might assume.
In 1992, while working at Widener University in Pennsylvania as the manager for the Music Department’s recording studio, Buddy conceptualized the first Light Viper fiber optic audio snake. Buddy approached Bill Linkow with his idea. The company’s business leader, although enthusiastic and supportive replied: “Interesting, but not yet, Buddy. The components are still too expensive and some aren’t advanced enough for pro audio. I’m not sure when this will change, but it will — it’s just not ready now.”
Eleven years later things had indeed changed. With a decade of electronics engineering discipline behind him — and still convinced that specific real-world problems in audio engineering could be solved more elegantly and cost-effectively with fiber-optics — Buddy once again approached his mentor Bill Linkow in the Spring of 2003 with his very same Light Viper “project.” This time, Linkow (in concert with partner Harry, Buddy’s father) would give the approving nod.
Expanding upon their decades of experience in fiber optic technology in data and voice communications systems, Buddy and FiberPlex’s engineers began in earnest in 2003 with the design of the company’s first professional audio fiber optic product, the Light Viper. With Buddy Oliver’s passion and guidance, FiberPlex’s team of engineers have correctly surmised that their company’s manufacturing expertise and the mature technology
of fiber optics (and associated digital electronics) can now bring numerous and extremely cost-effective synergies to literally dozens of pro audio applications for many commercial sound customers.
The Light Viper, the company’s first pro audio product, is a 32 X 8 audio “snake” specifically designed to replace bulky, cumbersome, old-fashioned and unreliable analog audio data transmission “networks” — as well as vulnerable stage and mixing boxes. The Light Viper is the first such mission-critical professional product in the company’s planned offering of innovative audio data transmission products.
Interestingly, the innovative and groundbreaking Light Viper brings FiberPlex full-circle, back to it roots in the pro audio business. How is this? What is the connection to pro audio? FiberPlex founders Linkow and Oliver learned about audio from their mentors, Pete Meisinger and Al Case, the founders of Versitron who, along with Linkow’s father, worked for US Recording. US Recording produced pro audio equipment, recordings, and operated commercial recording studios for radio stations — in the 1930’s and 40’s.
From the early days of vinyl and now, making high-quality audio travel literally at the “Speed of Light” through its groundbreaking Light Viper, professional audio runs through the veins of the ingenious engineers at FiberPlex.
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Additional information can be obtained at www.fiberplex.com or www.lightviper.com.
NOTE: Light Viper™ is a registered trademark of FiberPlex, Inc. Other company and product names may be trademarks of the respective companies with which they are associated.
—For more information, contact Ron Neilson, Neilson/Clyne, Inc.: Tel: (615) 274-2263;
Fax: (615) 274-2595; Email: rneilson@neilsonclyne.com; Web: www.neilsonclyne.com.
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