Jay Hill
Jay Hill’s career began in 1963 when he joined the sales organization of International Business Machines. In 1969, he joined the start-up Inforex and rose from a branch manager to director of marketing and of international distributors. In 1976, he left to become Vive-President of Marketing and Sales for Paradyne. By the time he resigned form Paradyne in 1980, Hill had introduced a level of sales management to data communications that would have a lasting imprint on the industry and help transform Paradyne into a feared competitor and public company. He then left technology for a few years before returning to be Senior Vice-President of Sales and Marketing for Doelz Networks (1984-1987), a manufacturer of ATM communications equipment. He left Doelz Networks to join Harris Corporation, Digital Telephone Systems Division as Corporate Vice President and Division General Manager. After a year, he next joined Cortex (1988- ) as Executive Vice President. Cortex was a provider of computer aided programming software.
I first met Jay at my initial Doelz Networks Board meeting; I was attending not as a member but as an observer. When it came time for the Marketing and Sales report, Jay joined the meeting. He was the most immaculately dressed executive I had ever seen at a venture capital backed company. He then made a presentation that reflected a professionalism learned at IBM and refined under the discipline of Bob Wiggins, the President of Paradyne. It was exemplary. After the meeting I asked Jay to have dinner with me. It became a ritual, and Frank Connors, the President of the company, would often join us. I learned much in those discussions. Jay and I became close friends and hence the pleasure of doing this interview, one that captures the changing dynamics of the leased-line market. This interview taken with the one of Bob Wiggins and of the executives of Codex and Milgo gives, in whole, a balanced view of the dominant market of Data Communications.
Keywords: IBM, Paradyne