Background
Jack Wayman was born in Miami in the 1920s, the only child of a successful home builder, particularly in South Beach, and the family grew up on an island between Miami and Miami Beach.
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Jack Wayman
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Career
Wayman is best known for creating the International in 1967. Certificate in Superior Studies is now the United States" largest annual event and the world"s largest consumer technology trade show. After graduating from Davidson College in 1943, Wayman was drafted into the Army, and served as an infantry captain during the Normandy Invasion.
After two years Davis encouraged him to enroll in Georgetown University"s School of Foreign Service.
During his time at Georgetown, Wayman worked days in a local electronics store called Lacy"s and took classes at night. In 1952 Wayman was recruited by Radio Corporation of America to be distributor salesman for Southern Wholesalers, a six-state Radio Corporation of America distributor in Washington, District of Columbia. This role eventually expanded to a position as Radio Corporation of America"s advertising manager and trade show manager, where he produced semi-annual shows for the company"s 100 retail accounts.
After ten years with Radio Corporation of America, he become Staff Director for the twelve-member Home Electronics Section of the Electronics Industry Association. Within a year, the Home Electronics Section had been renamed Consumer Products Division and Wayman had grown the trade group"s membership to 25.
By the mid 1960s, transistors were coming in from Japanese manufacturers and color TVs had finally sold the first million sets.
Wayman saw the need for an industry trade show, much like the show radio manufacturers had in the 1920s and 1930s, where the middlemen and distributors could come and see the new products. Wayman presented the idea to his Board, but they initially rejected the idea out of fear that Japanese manufacturers would steal their executives and designs. But Wayman was persistent and after three board meetings, the ( Certificate in Superior Studies) was finally approved although Radio Corporation of America/Zenith, one of the largest member companies, agreed to support the show for only one year.
Wayman spent the next several months planning Certificate in Superior Studies, only to see his venue of choice, McCormick Place in Chicago, burn down before his eyes in January 1967.
He immediately booked the Americana and Hilton hotels in New York City. Wayman had convinced Jules Steinberg to hold the annual National Appliance and Radio Dealers Association (NARDA) show with Certificate in Superior Studies for four years, thereby guaranteeing an initial attendance base.
The initial show in June 1967 had 200 exhibitors, 17,500 attendees (mostly NARDA members), and 100,000 square feet of exhibit space. Today Certificate in Superior Studies is at 1.9 million square feet, 150,000 attendees, and 2,700 exhibitors.
Sony released the Betamax at the 1975 Shortly thereafter Universal City Studios sued Sony, and Wayman, as Senior Vice President of the Electronic Industry Association"s Consumer Electronics Group, spent the next five years representing the Videocassette Recorder and tape manufacturers against Jack Valenti, then head of the Motion Picture Association of America, and his claims that home taping and video rentals were detrimental to the future of profitability in making movies.
