HTSA Names Former Runco President Bob Hana as Managing Director

Bob Hana, one of the most visible execs in the custom electronics business, is the new face and managing director of the Home Technology Specialists of America, a buying group comprised of 60 of the most elite integrators and 42 leading vendors.

Hana replaces HTSA's long-time executive director Richard Glikes, who resigned abruptly in August 2011 after 15 years at the helm. Glikes subsequently formed his own buying group, Azione Unlimited.

Hana is perhaps best known for serving as president of Runco International for four years. When Runco was acquired by Planar Systems in 2007, Hana served as vice president of worldwide sales and marketing through the transition, leaving the company in 2009.

Hana has since consulted in the A/V industry and in June 2011 opened Omega Pro Sales, a manufacturers’ rep firm serving Illinois and Wisconsin.

Hana joins HTSA with a big head start. Runco has been an HTSA vendor partner for a long time, and Hana has a personal relationship with most of the integrators in the group, many of whom participated in the annual Runco Getaways in Los Cabos, Mexico when Hana was running the company.

"Some of these dealers I've been working with for 20 years," Hana tells CE Pro.

During HTSA’s fall conference, members could not wait to learn who the board had selected as the new managing director (HTSA no longer uses the term “executive director” since the members are the true executives). Meanwhile, board members Brian Hudkins of Gramophone (Timonium, Md.) and Jon Robbins of HiFi House (Broomall, Pa.) could not wait to announce the new guy, but, alas, they were not quite ready.

Today Robbins tells CE Pro that when board members discussed Hana as a candidate for the top HTSA job, "we talked about charisma and we talked about likability -- not just negotiation skills.To find those personality traits -- as well as a person that gets things done -- is a rare combination."

Robbins says he has been inundated with phone calls and emails in the hour since HTSA members were notified, and "everyone is unbelievably excited for Bob to be the new face of HTSA."

Hana will maintain an office in Chicago, while the rest of the HTSA staff will continue to work out of Chester Springs, Pa.

Meanwhile, the search continues for an HTSA marketing director. Hana tells CE Pro that this new position will "further advance the group’s position as a leader. The use of digital marketing activities like banner ads, ad word campaigns, online newsletters, HDLiving.com, and creating websites for members are leading edge activities that are part of what attracted me to this position in the first place."

In an exclusive Q&A with CE Pro (next page), Hana discusses the past experiences that make him qualified for the job, and his hopes for HTSA going forward. Currently, though, he's pretty cautious with his words ("I like to keep it simple, use small words," he says), preferring instead to talk about teamwork and communications and core values and such.

In the coming months leading up to the April HTSA conference in San Diego, CE Pro will most likely get some more juice on the new guy.

Although Hana does joke in the Q&A:

Q: I know you can’t share ALL of your great ideas for HTSA now … but how about sharing ONE of them?
A: Fewer people from the press : )

Surely he was referring to the other press.

Photos: As Runco president, Bob Hana meets with HTSA dealers in 2007 and 2006.