1. Alan, you’re coming up on 10 years as President and CEO of East Coast Microwave. Can you tell us about your professional journey to ECM?
I started my career at ITT Electronics Quartz Crystal Division in Harlow Essex, England, as an apprentice mechanical engineer. During that early period, the company was first sold to Standard Telephone and Cables, and then Northern Telecom, and I rose within the organization from mechanical engineer to roles as a time and motion engineer, production planner and finally sales. Then, in the late 1980s, Northern Telecom began selling off its electronic component businesses, so I joined IQD Ltd, a privately owned quartz crystal resonator and oscillator company in the U.K., which had strong aspirations to expand into the U.S.
In 1996, I moved to the U.S. to kick start IQD Inc, located in Boston, Mass., and grew the business to $2 million in the first year before the company was acquired by CMAC. I then joined Vectron International, a global leader in precision quartz devices, where I became Vice President of Global Sales and the Vice President and General Manager of their Communications BU, servicing the prime OEM telecoms equipment suppliers.
In 2012, I joined Sand 9, a MEMS timing startup company based in Cambridge, Mass., which was acquired by Analog Devices in 2015. Shortly after I joined East Coast Microwave as interim President at the beginning of their acquisition by Powell Electronics, I initially supported the pre- and post-acquisition strategies and then served as President.
2. Can you tell us more about ECM’s structure, history and global impact?
East Coast Microwave was founded back in 1988 by Bruce Cooper. Bruce was an application engineer at MACOM. He and his wife Sheri grew the company from humble beginnings in their home to a well-respected specialty distributor of RF connectors, coaxial cables and other coaxial products from major manufacturers like Corning (Gilbert), Radiall, Amphenol RF, Times Microwave, SemFlex (Cinch), TempFlex (Molex), etc.
Today, East Coast Microwave is a wholly owned division of the Powell Electronics Group. We have significantly strengthened our line card of franchised partners with the additions of Huber+Suhner, Rosenberger, SV Microwave, Amphenol CDI, Micro-Coax and EZ Form. We have also invested heavily in inventory to support the needs of our customers and in our production capability, providing value-added services for custom cable assemblies on a rapid delivery cycle, reducing the lead time for these assemblies from months to days.
Today, East Coast Microwave sells to over 30 different countries worldwide.
3. What led you to pursue distribution, and what aspects of distribution have the biggest impact on the RF industry?
Having spent over 30 years in manufacturing, I saw a heavy focus on minimizing inventory in order to improve working capital, and while this does improve financial flexibility, it often leads to increased lead times to the customer, which can impact a company's ability to react to sudden changes in demand, which often results in product shortages.
Distribution fills that gap. At East Coast Microwave, we strive to anticipate our customers’ needs before they do. We have an ERP system that is specifically designed for electronic component distributors, which provides us with both historical data and forecast information, which allows us to make intelligent decisions with regard to the size and mix of inventory that we need to put in place. We then work closely with all our customers to make sure that they are aware of our inventory status and how this benefits them.
Today, ECM stocks all the major RF connector interfaces and all the major coaxial cable diameters, and our experienced staff is fully capable of guiding our customers through the selection process of the correct interface and cable for their application. As a result, we have become a trusted and valued supplier.
4. What sector is experiencing the most significant growth, and what do you think is driving it?
As the world becomes more connected to devices, the demand for RF connectors and coaxial cable continues to grow at a strong rate. Today, the fastest growing segments are (i) AI and the technology required to get vast amounts of data to mobile devices. This is being driven by rapid advancements in quantum computing, which is seeing dramatic growth and demand for specialty RF cable assemblies, attenuators, coaxial switches and coaxial LNAs. Over the next several years, these two technologies will combine to produce quantum AI, which will drastically improve the efficiency of AI algorithms. (ii) The defense/aerospace market is seeing huge growth in autonomous vehicles/drones, connected soldiers (Net Warrior), advanced radar systems, anti-jamming technologies and migrations from dumb to smart munitions. All this is driving advancements in RF connectors and cables with regard to size, frequency and ruggedness. (iii) Industrial IoT has been around for several years but is finally seeing large-scale adoption as industrial automation and robotics have increased the usage of RF connectors in sensors, communications modules and system controls.
5. ECM was acquired by Powell Electronics – what drove this decision, and how has it changed ECM?
Powell Electronics was founded in 1946 by Harold H. Powell, who was a Navy electronics technician during World War II. After the war, Harold started selling components from his garage in response to the burgeoning post-war demand for electronic parts. Over the years, the company established an unbroken record of success as a specialty distributor of circular connectors, ARINC connectors and D-Sub connectors supporting requirements for Powell and Signal.
However, as the use of wireless communications exploded in the mid 2005s, Powell began to recognize the need to expand into the RF arena. This required a unique knowledge of RF and microwave technologies, and so Powell began the search for a specialty RF distributor that would fit well alongside their traditional business model. In December of 2015, Powell acquired East Coast Microwave.
Shortly after the acquisition, Powell Electronics formed the Powell Electronics Group, which consisted of Powell Electronics and East Coast Microwave. This allowed the two companies to combine their sales forces under the Powell Group umbrella, resulting in both companies achieving wider penetration into their key target markets.
Today, East Coast Microwave still operates autonomously from Powell Electronics. We have our own facility in Woburn, Mass. and manage our own inventory and production capabilities, yet go to market with a combined sales focus. This has enabled both companies to achieve YoY growth every year since the acquisition in 2015.
6. What challenges have the last few years brought, and how have you navigated them?
Without a doubt, COVID has brought the biggest challenges to East Coast Microwave over the past few years. As a required business, we had to continue to operate during the peak years of the COVID outbreak and as a small business, we had to manage the contagion to ensure that the entire operation did not get infected at the same time. This meant moving all non-essential office staff to work remotely, which in turn allowed us to dramatically increase the workspace between individuals in the warehouse, shipping and production areas. This resulted in minimal downtime due to illnesses and ensured that we continued to ship products to our customers every day during the shutdown period and beyond.
In addition, as we saw the impacts of COVID take a significant toll on many of our OEM franchised partners, we made the decision to dramatically increase our inventory positions across the board as we began to see lead times from those partners increase. This decision proved to be vital to our customers and enabled us to see double-digit growth each year during COVID.
7. What values drive your leadership style, and how have they contributed to ECM’s success?
I have always believed that overcommunicating the vision and strategy of the company is critical to ensure success and that everyone is headed in the same direction. In distribution, everything is about speed and service. If you are slow to respond or you do not have the inventory when customers need it, then you will struggle to survive. At East Coast Microwave, we have built a team that has a strong sense of urgency. Each person has the flexibility to make informed business decisions without having to run every decision up to the senior management level first, but most importantly, we have successfully fostered an atmosphere where the entire organization thinks and works as a team, rather than a group of individuals.
8. What do you expect will be the biggest change in the industry in the next five to 10 years?
There has been a lot of talk about the need for higher frequencies in the RF industry, with new connector interfaces emerging in the past few years (1.35 mm, 1.0 mm and 0.8 mm) to support higher frequencies of 90 GHz, 110 GHz and 145 GHz and yet today, these interfaces account for less than 1 percent of the total market. However, as AI continues to evolve and the need to transfer more data to mobile devices increases, demand for these higher frequencies will start to take off, initially in high speed RF testing, but ultimately out to the mobile device. This will drive developments in smaller diameter coaxial cables, smaller connector interfaces and drive growth in areas such as RF over fiber.
9. What are you most excited about for the future of RF?
The fact that we are still only scratching the surface of where RF technology can go. When I was growing up in England, talk of “RF” was primarily reserved for radio enthusiasts. Today, it is everywhere and continues to grow. In 2026, we will stand on the precipice of a new era. In the coming decade, AI will change the very way we interact daily, and mobility and wireless will be crucial for its success. The future for RF has never been brighter.
10. Is there anything else you’d like the MWJ readers to know about you and ECM?
At East Coast Microwave, we eat, sleep and breathe RF. We are here to help buyers and engineers navigate the complex world of RF connectors and cables and to ensure that the solutions we provide meet their cost, quality and performance needs. As a franchised distributor to all the major coaxial connector and coaxial cable manufacturers, we have millions of combinations of custom RF cable assemblies we can design and build immediately from our extensive inventory of connectors and cables. We provide custom RF cable assemblies in days, not weeks or months.