By Nick Mistis

Readers of our magazine are familiar with this special issue of Via Satellite, in which we announce our recipient of the Satellite Executive of the Year award. The winner is the executive we feel charged ahead like no other in regard to doing business throughout the preceding calendar year. The recipient graces our cover and his or her leadership and business style is showcased through our profile on pp. 16-29. This year, I am pleased to announce that John Kealey, president and CEO of iDirect Technologies, was chosen as Satellite Executive of the Year 2004.

For iDirect, 2004 was, without a doubt, a successful year for its business and financial sheets. But those were not the only things that caught our attention when we chose Kealey as our winner. What stood out was his intense drive for business growth and more specifically, how he goes about achieving his yearly objectives.

Make no mistake, Kealey is one of the most competitive executives in the industry today, wanting to claim as much market share as possible. But his way of going about it is anything but conventional.

He lives by a simple philosophy, which is best described by the common phrase "All boats rise with the tide." Out of that phrase Kealey materializes a business practice that negates competition on the front end. He would sooner gather all his competitors and work together in educating a market about what specifically satellite products and services can offer, rather than cutting off the competition at the pass for the sake of closing a deal.

"We, collectively as an entire industry, need to further build brand awareness among new market segments we are trying to penetrate for selling satellite products and services," Kealey told me. "Our focus should be on improving this awareness as an industry and building market segments that can push products off our shelves. Once the markets are in place, we can then focus on competing between each other for those contracts."

In my opinion, this way of doing business made Kealey a formidable choice for Satellite Executive of the Year. Namely, in today’s competitive business environment, a greater burden falls on the satellite industry to collectively educate and inform established and emerging business segments about the benefits and advancements of satellite technology. In this regard, iDirect is not only a leader. It is exemplifying a course of action other companies will need to follow if they wish to succeed in the years ahead. "If we fight among ourselves at the beginning of the process, we will kill ourselves. First a robust market must be created and then the fierce competition among the industry players can begin," Kealey noted.

The growing satellite-enabled broadband market is gaining strength; The broadcasting environment is facing changes from transmission standards to content delivery moving more toward HD; and the role commercial satellite communications and services will play within the military market is expanding. Because of these and other developments, a greater emphasis on building a robust business environment is now needed. "Successfully relaying to those markets why satellite products and services should be integrated is our job. If we don’t educate, we won’t sell," Kealey added.

We hope you will join us in honoring Kealey during our annual luncheon on March 24.