IDEA Announces Leadership Transition

ROSSLYN, Va. — The IDEA Board of Directors, chaired by Jack Carlson (president of Southwire’s North American Business), announced Wednesday that CEO and President Bob Gaylord has stepped down to pursue other areas of interest.

IDEA is jointly owned by the National Electrical Manufacturers Association (NEMA) and the National Association of Electrical Distributors (NAED).

“The IDEA board and the entire organization thanks Bob for his leadership and service to the electrical industry community during the last seven years as CEO,” said Carlson.

With Gaylord’s departure, the IDEA board has named Chris Curtis, former CEO of Schneider Electric’s North American Operations, current chairman of the NEMA Board of Governors, and an IDEA board member, to manage the day-to-day operations of IDEA while chairing the search process for a new executive officer.

“Chris has been in the electrical industry for more than 20 years and is well known to both the manufacturer and distributor communities. He is uniquely qualified to help the IDEA organization and its customers through this leadership transition. We are very fortunate to be able to have Chris available at this time,” Carlson said.

Earlier this year, NEMA and NAED leadership worked closely as IDEA shareholders to increase support of and attention to IDEA’s vision of being the premier source of manufacturer data. Core to that mission is the establishment and administration of an industry data standard that provides users with all key information their customers require, and manufacturers with a clear expectation of what data is needed from them.

The purpose of IDEA is to source, synchronize, and distribute data management solutions for its subscribing users. NEMA members populate the industry data warehouse (known commonly as IDW) managed by IDEA based on a standard set of data fields. NAED members and other subscribers use the data as part of their electronic commerce solutions they provide to customers.