A deeply religious man and industry veteran in the field of broadcasting, Craig Harper is uniquely qualified for the position he just accepted with Sony. For over 25 years (20 of which has been in broadcasting, often holding multiple positions at the same time), dual roles were a specialty; take his newest role - he accepted a position with Sony Electronics Professional Solutions of America as the Business Development Manager for the Faith-Based / House of Worship market, which he began this April. He is also continuing his other role on the board of directors at PowerPoint Ministries (a position he's held for over 20 years).
Harper's interest in broadcasting first became apparent at the age of ten, when he began experimenting with his church's PA system in his hometown of Waco, Texas. By the age of 15, he acquired his first paid position as disk jockey at a Waco, Texas Christian radio station, with a 3,000 watt capacity in the FM range, playing records of Christian music and reading news clips on the air.
In 1978, he obtained a position with John Crowe productions as a Video Engineer for remote television Broadcasts. His professional evolution continued when he achieved a position as vice-president of broadcast operations at KWTX-TV in 1982. In this capacity, he oversaw operations in the Promotion department as well as engineering and production departments. In addition, he helped spearhead the rebranding and advancement of KWXT. During his tenure, he also served as a consultant for the general manager of the parent station, WBXT. By 1986, He had obtained a position with IMG as the Baylor University Football Broadcast Producer (September 1986 - December 2010 (24 years, 4 months)). He held this position for well over 20 years. There, he served as an on-site producer and engineer for Baylor University. Not only did he produce and mix games, but he also set up and took down various types of hardware.
By 1990, his time with KWTX-TV drew to a close; but Mr. Harper acquired a new position the same month he finished at the TV station - this was at another TV station, WFAA TV. At this station, he was responsible for overseeing the daily (technical) function of the News department, as well as handling budgeting concerns. He was responsible for the daily news, and handled all the technology related to the news. During his time at WFAA TV, Mr. Harper completed such notable achievements as designing a new 15,000 Sq. foot Newsroom, orchestrating their news coverage of the first Gulf War, as well as being the supervisor of the station helicopter and pilots program. In 1991, his time at KWTX-TV was over, after over 13 years of service in that venue. 
In 1994, he acquired a position he still holds to this day - over 20 years later; that of a member of the board of directors at PowerPoint Ministries - an international broadcasting ministry originating from the Prestonwood Church.
Well before he gained his current position with Sony, Harper became quite familiar with their products while he served of the board at PowerPoint Ministries. The church was already using several Sony products - like MVS switchers and HD cameras. Harper helped the ministry to use their Sony equipment with more flexible and "outside-the-box" thinking. When Sony had the good fortune to acquire Harper's services this year, Alec Shapiro, the current President of 'Sony's Professional Solutions of America' group, said, "Sony has worked with churches and ministries for several years, and while we've had great success, we realized the market needs a dedicated expertise, Craig fills that bill perfectly, and is the right choice to lead our efforts in house of worship."
November of 1997 was a busy time for Harper; he finished his time at WFAA TV and acquired a position as the executive director of technology at Belo Corp. In this position, Harper o
versaw technical functions at 20 TV stations, and participated in a transition to such major systems as UMatic (the first prototype of this was developed by Sony in 1969), and Betacam SX (first developed by Sony in 1982), along with other production systems. In 2007, his position with Belo transitioned into Vice President/Chief Technology Officer. His responsibilities and experience were expanded even further at this point. Advancement and change once more visited Harper in 2012, when he gained a position with the NAB as the chairman of the Television Technology Committee (take a quick peek at our NAB coverage during that time). By January of 2014, Harper moved on from his positions at Belo and the NAB. For a couple brief months after that, he only had one job, if you can imagine that!
Now this next thing could just be a coincidence but I'll let you decide. In April of this year, Craig Harper signed on with Sony, bringing a near perfect blend of skills and interests to fit his new position; then, just one month after that, Sony also announced a little piece of news that could have a big impact on the Industry. It might even be a proverbial game changer. Sony and its partner in this venture, IBM, had a little project going. This small breakthrough was announced at the International Magnetics Conference in Dresden, Germany on May 5th. It's no big deal really - rather, it's a small deal. Sony and IBM have produced a magnetic tape that can hold 185 terabytes of data. Yes, you read that correctly - I said 185 TERABYTES !!! If you wanted to store the same amount of data on Blu-ray discs, all you would need is about thirty seven hundred of them! The previous record for memory storage was set in 2010; this breakthrough exceeds that
record by (a tiny bit over) five times. This special cartridge holds 148 Gigabytes per square inch.
How the heck could a tape hold that much information? Sony and IBM upped the ante on a technology known as "sputter deposition." How does that work exactly? It involves layered magnetic crystals shooting argon ions onto a polymer film substrate... that much I can tell you - the rest is proprietary. Apparently, the excess of conformity this process creates makes it easier to store mucho data. The two companies have already begun work on a project that will make this technology more accessible to consumers. They are developing smaller tapes that 'only' hold 1 terabyte (that's enough memory to store 250 movie DVD's). 2014 has been quite the eventful year for Sony and the year hasn't even hit the halfway point!
About Sony
Sony Corporation of America, located in New York, NY, is the U.S. headquarters of Sony Corporation, based in Tokyo, Japan. Sony's principal U.S. businesses include Sony Electronics Inc., Sony Mobile Communications (USA) Inc., Sony Computer Entertainment America LLC, Sony Network Entertainment International LLC., Sony Pictures Entertainment Inc., Sony Music Entertainment, Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC, and Sony Online Entertainment LLC. With some 900 million Sony devices in hands and homes worldwide today, a vast array of Sony movies, television shows and music, and the PlayStation Network and the Sony Entertainment Network, Sony creates and delivers more entertainment experiences to more people than anyone else on earth. See more at: www.sony.com.