Jadz Janucik

SVP, Association Affairs NCTA

"I love being an advocate for the industry," said Jadz Janucik, senior vice president of association affairs for the National Cable & Telecommunications Association in Washington, D.C. By all accounts, the industry loves her back and celebrates the work she does to keep the state-level cable community engaged on key local and national issues.

Janucik is working with her seventh NCTA president, having been with the association for 33 years. Saying goodbye to so many mentors and friends appears to be the only part of her job she doesn't like.

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AN ENVIABLE ROLODEX

Heading up a 10-person staff, Janucik manages NCTA's "key contacts" program, working with all of the state cable associations to monitor legislation. "We work with industry people all over the country to urge them to become involved in the political process, to be advocates for the industry on Capitol Hill," she said. That effort includes weekly updates of what's happening on the Hill for those key contacts.

Janucik is currently keeping track of broadband deployment — monitoring it to make sure cities and others aren't overbuilding existing franchises with all that stimulus money — and keeping an eye on revenue-hungry localities that may be considering new taxes on cable, among other issues. Another big part of her job is working with free-market think tanks and diversity groups, to help them find common ground with cable. "I think Jadz is one of the unsung heroes of the cable industry," C-SPAN president Susan Swain said.

"As we move more to an age of digital technology and social networking, Jadz understands and harnesses people power," Swain said. "Over the years, she has gotten to know virtually everybody in this business at the grass roots and has helped the industry harness that to tell its story effectively." If it sounds as if Janucik was building a social network before the Internet came along, Swain calls that the "perfect" metaphor: "She is cable's real Facebook."

A Polish immigrant who came to the U.S. (Elizabeth, N.J., specifically) at age 6 with nothing but some luggage and parents willing to start over in a new country, Janucik developed an ambition to become a foreign correspondent.

The first in her family to go to college, she graduated from American University in Washington, D.C., in 1975 with a bachelor's degree in communications and political science. Entering the Washington job market out of college, with little experience, made it tough. Being a woman didn't help.

"Everyone that you interviewed with wanted to know if you could type," she said. "I would hazard a guess that more women got asked that question than men." She was offered secretarial positions but wasn't ready to trade her dreams for treading water in the typing pool.

Janucik got an interview at a radio station in Manassas, Va. "I don't remember the name, but I do remember the experience. They said, 'Well, honey, I don't think they would like a woman interviewing them in City Hall.'

"For two years, I held off and temped, at the National Trust for Historic Preservation for a while, and a bunch of other jobs," Janucik recalled. Eventually, she needed to get a "real job," and knew she would have to type. She joined the National Cable Television Association in 1977 as administrative assistant for the office of operator services. It soon became obvious she had a talent for organization and dealing with people. Those are traits that come in very handy in coordinating with far-flung associations and groups.

"Jadz has the ability to get people to work together when the pressure is on and the outcome is in doubt," Washington lawyer Bert Carp, the former executive VP of the NCTA, said. "And when it's over, everyone is still friends."

He credited that success to a "unique combination of energy, organization and cheerful manner. We are very lucky to have her."

Janucik cited Carp as one of her mentors, as well as Ivan Johnson, now vice president of government relations for Cox Communications in Phoenix and her former boss at NCTA.

Other mentors are past NCTA presidents Jim Mooney and Decker Anstrom, as well as current chief Kyle McSlarrow, whom she said has been important to the association and the industry "at a very critical time." Janucik's passion for the job, combined with hard work, has translated into success.

SOUGHT-AFTER FOR ADVICE

"She really takes care of her people," McSlarrow said. "What is unique about Jadz is that she is always thinking how she can help other people she's working with, and it's not just NCTA but throughout the industry. There are an extraordinary number of people who look to her for advice and counsel." Said Janucik: "I think that my parents taught me the value of hard work. When we emigrated here, we had virtually nothing. We had two trunks and a couple of suitcases. My father worked in a meat-packing plant, and my mother worked in a bakery and as a maid. And they bought a house within five years. And they paid cash."

Except for a mortgage on her house, Janucik is equally debt-averse and equally determined to make her own way. "You want something, you've got to work hard for it," she said. "Nobody gives you anything."