Ahren Hartman

AHREN HARTMAN

Hi, I'm Ahren!

I’m a critical thinking executive with a dynamic personality and an impressive background of leadership, engineering, product development and electronics manufacturing.

I grew up taking things apart to see how they worked. I was fascinated with sound and radio signals. How the FM radio signal got from the station to our car wherever we drove?

My interests in sound and radio led me to becoming the sound guy for my cousin's high school rock band and eventually going to electrical engineering school at the University of Illinois. We were playing in bars until 3am before I had a driver's license.

I learned my values from my parents: be honest, be responsible, be on time, and work hard.

I'm an executive with 31+ years of leadership, experience in engineering, design, quality and manufacturing. I'm also an adjunct professor teaching Design Thinking and Communication at Northwestern University.

My personal motto is strive for excellence in whatever you do.

What I've learned: technology is a means to an end, people can do great things if they're in the right job, honesty is the best way to lead, always put the customer first, and ya gotta have a good vision.

Shure Incorporated

Vice President

I was hired at Shure as an RF (radio frequency) engineer working on their very first wireless microphone, the W Series. My first job was to learn how quart crystals worked as the heart of FM transmitters. Go ahead - ask me what 'motional capacitance' means?

I struggled mightily in EE school, so no surprise I wasn't a very good engineer. I would ask the senior engineers to design circuits for me and then stitch them together into products.

Figured out I was better at leading teams than designing transistor oscillators. Ended up leading over 12 product teams that grossed >$1B USD.

Worked with some of the world's best sound engineers and artists. The Who, Rolling Stones, U2, Springsteen, Cyndi Lauper. I once put an ambient earphone prototype in James Taylor's ear - he loved it.

The pinnacle of my design career at Shure was leading the development of Axient(TM) - the world's first and only cognitive wireless microphone system. Used by the Dalai Lama himself. And Obama. And Bono.

Finally, I had the pleasure of leading the global Quality engineering team at Shure for 5 years. 150 of the finest people you'll ever meet. They are the essence of Shure.

Federal Communications Commission

Shure Liaison

I first stepped foot in the Federal Communications Commission on October 29, 2003. I was terrified.

The FCC had proposed to allow WiFi-like devices into the TV spectrum where wireless microphones operated. A huge threat to Shure's business.

I was part of a team to work with the FCC to mitigate this threat.

We battled Dell, Microsoft, Intel, Google and many others. I was even on a conference call with Larry Page.

With the help of some very talented people and a good strategy, Shure held its own. We retained access to the TV spectrum and the microphone business grew >10% each year.

I made countless trips to Washington, D.C. in 20 years. Spent thousands of hours writing advocacy positions for Shure and the industry. I even produced a video for spectrum advocacy. All part of my day job.

I received two President's Awards from Shure for this work. And was named Shure Associate of the Year in 2008 along with my good friends Mark Brunner and Edgar Reihl.