Jack Wayman, 92, pioneer in sales of consumer electronics, tireless pitchman
NEW YORK — Jack Wayman, a sales executive who saw the future and said it was consumer electronics, organized the industry’s first trade show in the era of black-and-white television, and fought Hollywood’s endeavor to smother the videocassette-recorder business, died Aug. 30 in Boulder, Colo. He was 92.
His death was confirmed by the Consumer Electronics Association, an industry trade group he established in 1963 to promote what he saw as a growing demand for consumer-size products from electronics manufacturers.
Mr. Wayman’s title when he founded the group was senior vice president for consumer sales of the manufacturers’ Electronic Industries Association. In practice, he was the industr y ’s top salesman and chief carnival barker during a sea change in consumer culture.
He organized the first Consumer Electronics Show in 1967, in New York. At the time, the industry’s product line consisted of televisions, radios, and phonographs for the most part. By 2012, when he attended his last show at 90, riding in a golf cart, the wares had become a virtual universe of gadgetry theoretically capable of connecting everyone on the planet.
Mr. Wayman became widely known to the public in the mid-1970 s, when VCRs became popular. He appeared in hundreds of television and newspaper interviews — first as the industry spokesman armed with the soaring sales figures, then as a defender of VCR technology against claims by the film industry that its use violated federal copyright laws.
In the seminal battle that unfolded, Mr. Wayman was the face of VCR manufacturers, often sparring with Jack Valenti, president of the Motion Picture Association of America.
He testified at congressio- nal hearings in defense of Americans’ right to tape television shows. And in 1984, when the Supreme Court ruled that consumers violated no copyright laws by taping programs for their personal use, he predicted that film studios would reap a windfall in home video- cassette sales. He was proved correct.
Norman Jack Wayman was born in Miami, the only child of Dora and Jesse Wayman, a prominent Miami developer. He graduated from Davidson
Mr. Wayman, who was the face of VCR manufacturers in the mid1970s, testified at congressional hearings in defense of Americans’ right to tape television shows.
College near Charlotte, North Carolina, and served in Europe during World War II as a combat infantry company commander.
The recipient of many medals and two Presidential Citations, he was inducted last year into the French Legion of Hon- or for service from the Normandy landings until the German surrender.
After the war, Mr. Wayman began taking classes at the Georgetown University School of Foreign Service , then changed career plans. “Guy sitting behind me says: ‘My father’s opening a TV store. Let’s change our classes,’ ” he told The Chicago Tribune in 1992. “I did. That’s when it hit me — electronics fever!”
He was sales manager for a chain of 12 electronics stores and spent 10 years as head of the RCA distributorship in five states around Washington before he was hired in 1962 by the Electronic Industries Association.
Mr. Wayman moved the trade show to Chicago in 1971. By 1989, too big for any one convention center, it had been split into two events — a summer show in Chicago and a winter show in Las Vegas.
He was a tireless salesman. Traveling the country, he gave by his own account 500 interviews a year to trade and general interest publications, ready with facts, figures, and a tip on the next big thing.
“We’re moving toward wallsize television screens,” he told The Washington Post in 1982.
He plugged products that made it (car stereos, cordless phones, answering machines, VCRs, and personal computers) and those that didn’t (3-D stereo binoculars, hand-held electronic encyclopedias, and wristwatch televisions); and posed with them all without fear or favor.
“Cellular phone at my ear?” he asked a photographer at the 1992 show. “Camcorder at my eye? Mickey Mouse talking watch on my wrist? How about a language translator in my breast pocket?”