SeaChange International announced this morning that former Comcast engineering executive Steve Craddock has joined its board of directors.
SeaChange said in an SEC 8-k filing last week that Craddock had joined the board, as well as the company’s audit committee, while Ira Goldfarb, executive vice president of worldwide sales and services, departed from SeaChange on Friday.
“Ira had shared with me his desire to pursue other interests, and I supported the decision,” SeaChange CEO Raghu Rau said. “We think highly of Ira and recognize his contributions both to SeaChange and the industry. We are eliminating the position of worldwide sales leader because we are moving to a regional structure, and Ira assisted in the succession planning.”
Craddock is currently the president of The Del Ray Group, an independent consulting firm that provides services to high technology and financial clients focused on the media and telecommunications market segments.
Craddock, who retired from Comcast in 2008 as senior vice president of technology in the office of the CTO and senior vice president of new media development, is well known throughout the cable operator industry.
He played a key role in the development of the cable industry’s data, VOD and VoIP technologies. Craddock, who left Bell Atlantic in 1994 to join Comcast, was Comcast’s representative at CableLabs for its DOCSIS and PacketCable initiatives and also worked on the CableHome project.
He chaired the PacketCable Certification Board and the PacketCable Business Committee and was a founding member, and a Comcast voting member, on the CableLabs DOCSIS Certification Board. He also led the technical due diligence on a number of major Comcast investment initiatives in the technology space.
At Bell Atlantic, Craddock served as vice president and was a key figure in the company’s DSL, fiber-optic (FTTH), cable TV and interactive video initiatives. During two decades with Bell Atlantic and AT&T, he was extensively involved in engineering, operations, product development and strategic planning across the voice, video and data markets.
Craddock’s career with Bell Atlantic/AT&T spanned more than 20 years in engineering, operations, product development and strategic planning.
Since his retirement from Comcast, Craddock has been an independent consultant for companies in the cable television and telecommunications industries. Craddock has served on a number of technical advisory boards for technology companies and has also served as a director on the boards of several privately held companies.
“We are pleased to welcome Steve to our board of directors and applaud his outstanding achievements in the development of emerging video technologies throughout his distinguished career,” said SeaChange chairman of the board Thomas Olson. “His unmatched expertise will serve us well as we continually innovate and provide the next generations of multi-screen video platforms, advertising solutions and gateway software to video service providers worldwide.”
