Charlie Jerabek, 56, has been named president and a board member of Osram Sylvania. Effective October 1, Jerabek will succeed Dean T. Langford, 62, a former IBM and GTE executive, who will retire in September as the longest-sitting president since the lighting firm adopted Sylvania as its principal name in 1942.
Langford joined GTE in 1983 and was named president of GTE Electrical Products (the Sylvania lighting and precision materials businesses) a year later. He was named president of Osram Sylvania in 1993 when Osram and Sylvania merged.
For the last four years, Jerabek has been executive vice president and general manager of the company’s global automotive lighting business, and since 1995, he also has been a member of Osram Sylvania’s executive committee. Jerabek has been head of automotive lighting since January 1991, becoming vice president in 1993, when the former GTE Electrical Products Group was sold to Osram, resulting in the creation of Osram Sylvania. He began his career with GTE in 1973 as a sales engineer in Los Altos, California, for the GTE Precision Materials Division. Following additional assignments of increasing responsibility in sales, marketing, manufacturing, and engineering, he was appointed in 1983 to the position of general manager of GTE Emissive Products, located in Exeter, N.H. From 1986 until he moved to automotive lighting, he served as general manger of GTE Glass Products, responsible for the production and supply of glass products to the lighting industry and to original equipment manufacturers.
Jerabek is a past chairman and current member of the Board of Directors of Valeo Sylvania. He also serves as a director of Bancroft Industries, and he is a past director of the Motor Equipment Manufacturers Association (MEMA).