TE News: TE Connectivity Issues Lifetime Achievement Awards

TE Connectivity (TE), a world leader in connectivity and sensors, recently issued their prestigious Lifetime Achievement Awards to Kenzo Oda, Pedro Rubio and Gerry Shi. The award is considered the highest honor at TE and is given to a select few who have made significant contributions to the company throughout their career.

"All three awardees have not only been instrumental to innovation and operations at TE, they also have contributed greatly to unleashing the potential of the employees around them,” said TE Connectivity Chairman and CEO Tom Lynch. “We are proud to celebrate these three fantastic technical leaders who are shining examples of how our people really are the foundation for our success as a company.”

The awards were presented during ceremonies at two internal conferences held concurrently this October in Prague: TEchCon 2016—TE’s annual technology-focused event that brings together hundreds of the company's engineers, scientists and technologists to strengthen collaboration and advance innovation globally—and the Global Operations Leadership Meeting (GOLM) 2016—TE’s biennial operations-focused gathering to share best practices and successes from its factories, supply chains and manufacturing processes.

Kenzo Oda has been granted 67 patents in his 35-plus year tenure within TE's Automotive business unit. He has contributed to innovation, product development and organic growth, including developing several major products focused on safety and reliability in harsh environments that are being used by major auto manufacturers globally today. Oda-san became engineering director for TE China in 2004 and later helped establish the state-of-the-art China Engineering Center in Shenzhen, employing and training many engineers under TE’s "Go China" program. Since 2011, he has been in Japan as strategic product development senior engineering manager and currently works in platform engineering and material productivity.

Pedro Rubio has worked in TE's Juarez, Mexico facility for 27 years and has tirelessly driven the implementation of the "self-directed work teams" concept, training more than 4,000 people and graduating over 200 self-directed work teams globally. Rubio is an exceptional team-builder and is always willing to mentor others—whether onsite in Juarez or in other sites across the Americas and Europe. He continues to define the architecture as well as be the primary promotor and ambassador of the self-directed work team philosophy and its benefits worldwide.

Gerry Shi began working at TE in 1994, advancing from quality manager to quality director to plant general manager and is now the China operations director for the Data and Devices business unit, leading eight TE plants in China. Over the years, Shi has developed quality management systems and streamlined manufacturing processes that have enhanced TE's engineering and manufacturing capabilities. He also drove the transformation of TE’s Shanghai East and Qingdao plants to highly automated and efficient sites. Among his many accomplishments, Shi has always put talent development as his highest priority, and has created a solid pipeline of high-potential individuals including two of our current plant general managers in the China plants.