I'm Jim Hayes. I'm a techie
entrepreneur who, with my wife and business partner,
Karen, started one of the world's first fiber optic
test equipment companies, Fotec,
in 1980. Fotec was
very successful with me on the technology side and
Karen running operations. Fotec was acquired by Fluke Networks twenty
years later.
I had
also been involved in training cabling and fiber
optic technicians since 1982 through a Fotec
organization we called Fiber U. The Fotec and Fiber
U websites and all the training materials we created
were probably the most popular in communications
cabling. In 1995, the instructors at Fiber U decided
the industry needed a professional society so we got
people in the industry together and founded The Fiber Optic
Association.
Today I'm the President
of The Fiber Optic
Association and Karen and I run The FOA and VDV Works, a
consulting company. We've revived the FOTEC Lennie
Lightwave's Guide To Fiber Optics and Uncle
Ted's Guide To VDV Cabling on the web
for everyone who missed these highly-praised
introductions to fiber optics and structured
cabling. Fiber U
has been adopted by FOA for their free online
web-based training. I edit
and/or write the FOA textbooks on fiber optics and
cabling (as well as a couple of my own), write
articles and columns on cabling for many
publications and serve as a contributing editor to Electrical
Contractor, ISE and IMSA Journal magazines.
I'm also a frequent speaker at seminars and
conventions to promote fiber optics and the FOA.
This website includes my
personal pages.
Links To More Pages (Sitemap)
My
professional resume
My writings
VDV Works
VDV Academy
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- Link to Condo Web Page
- I've always been
involved with walking/hiking, sports cars, art and
photography.
Karen and I like to walk around
cities and hike the outdoors. We regularly hike at the Will Rogers Ranch
nearby and in the Santa Monica mountains near Mailbu.
- Before I became a professional
"techie" I "wrenched" for various racing teams
and photographed many races. I raced and
collected Alfa Romeo sports cars for many years. I've retired from
racing myself but maintain my interest in cars.
- I studied to become an astronomer and still
follow astronomy!
- Karen and I are art and
architecture buffs and frequently visit
interesting places, galleries and museums. For
example, we have visited
many of the famous - and many other not so
well-known Frank Lloyd Wright projects around
the US.
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- My main interest
from the early 1960s to today is photography -
mainly documenting our interests and travel.
- I
have thousands of photos of racing, much from
60s era sports car races that I've been
cataloging, putting online
and then giving them and much of my collection
of auto racing memorabilia to the Watkins Glen racing library
for preservation. I was also curator of many
images of 50's racing taken by Howard
Wolery, the high school teacher who got me
interested in both sports cars and photography
which have now been donated to the Watkins Glen
library.
- Karen and I enjoy
travel, especially nature trips around the world
and local in in our home in California.
We've been down the Nile in Egypt,
the Galapogas, Canada to see Grizzlies, safari in Kenya, UAE and visited ancient ruins in Turkey and Lebanon,
and whale
watching in Baja. And lots more!
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- Karen and I moved
from Boston to a hobby farm in California in early 2003 from
the suburbs of Boston. The farm was on a rural
mountainside between LA and San Diego. Here's
some photos of
the place we bought which we called Food Chain
Farm, local animals and plants.
In 2017, we sold the farm and moved to our condo
in downtown Santa Monica where we live full time.
Links To More Pages
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