$40,000 raised for Hildenbrand memorial award, scholarship$40,000 raised for Hildenbrand memorial award, scholarship

Charter's Kerry Zinger named 'Rising Leader,' STEM School Highands Ranch FIRST members win grants.

September 3, 2020

2 Min Read

EXTON, Pa. – The Society of Cable Telecommunications Engineers (SCTE), its global arm, the International Society of Broadband Experts (ISBE), and the SCTE Foundation today announced new funding for, and winners of, the Wilt J. Hildenbrand Jr. memorial scholarships and awards instituted last year.

SCTE•ISBE and the Foundation announced that a campaign by "Friends of Wilt" raised a total of $40,000 this year, matching the initial donation last year by the YAS Foundation that spurred creation of the Wilt J. Hildenbrand Jr. scholarships and the annual Wilt J. Hildenbrand Jr. Rising Leader award. Friends of Wilt donors include: The Dolan Family; Mike Lajoie; James Blackley; Rouzbeh Yassini; Yvette Kanouff; Mark Hess; Pragash Pillai; Joe Godas; and Kathy Davis.

The Wilt J. Hildenbrand Jr. Rising Leader award, which recognizes a rising cable telecommunications star under the age of 40, is being presented this year to Kerry Zinger, senior manager of software development at Charter Communications. Zinger is a veteran who spent eight years in the Army reserves. Among Zinger's accomplishments has been the success of Charter's IP Video Services (IPVS) application. Zinger skillfully addressed operational issues and refactored the application to enable it to orchestrate customer experiences on both QAM and IP delivered video. Today, she manages the IPVS application which helps support millions of video customer experiences daily and is a key component in Charter's video streaming products, including the highly-rated Spectrum TV App.

This year's $20,000 Wilt J. Hildenbrand Jr. scholarship will be shared by five students from STEM School Highlands Ranch: Corbin Baird, Katie Butler, Dylan Homesley, Aedin Elise Sarff and Ben Vigil. All five were First Robotics team colleagues of Kendrick Castillo, who was killed saving the lives of other students during a shooting at the school in May 2020.

Hildenbrand passed away last year at the age of 70 after a lengthy career that included four decades in the Cablevision organization. Hildenbrand joined the company as chief engineer in 1976 and ultimately became executive vice president of technology and engineering. Among his innovations were Cablevision's rollouts of 100 Mbps residential broadband, downloadable security for digital video services and cloud-based navigation for legacy set-top boxes.

SCTE/ISBE

Subscribe and receive the latest news from the industry.
Join 62,000+ members. Yes it's completely free.

You May Also Like