New CEO at Office Automation

Joel Shusterman has been appointed president at Office Automation Systems, a San Diego-based laser printer manufacturer. He replaces Peter M. Steiner, who recently resigned to pursue a business opportunity in Northern California.

Shusterman, 51, comes to Office Automation with more than 20 years of experience in the computer industry. After earning an electrical engineering degree from Drexel University in Philadelphia, he got his first job with Philco, designing circuits.

Most recently, Shusterman was vice president of marketing with Commodore Business Machines. He has also held management positions with Burroughs Corp., Sanders Associates and General Electric.

In 1977, at the beginning of the personal computer industry, Shusterman co-founded Franklin Computer Corp. and came out with a series of computers closely emulating the Apple personal computer. By 1984, Franklin was ranked the nation’s seventh-largest personal computer company.

In 1983, Computer Reseller News named Shusterman among the 25 most influential people in the computer industry. “It was the same month Franklin pushed me out,” Shusterman recalled.

“That’s the irony of this business,” he said. “As CEO at Franklin, I thought that success would be measured by great revenues and large profits, but that’s not always the case.”

Shusterman says he looks forward to working with the staff at Office Automation and is impressed by the existing talent. “This company is really like a well-constructed ship sitting in the middle of an ocean that just doesn’t have the head of steam,” he said.

“The ship is sound, but it was drifting, it had no direction,” he said. “I have to aim the company where its strengths are. One of my major functions is to find that formula for success.”

From his early days working in the home radio laboratory at Philco, Shusterman has developed a love of old radios from the 1920s and ‘30s, and he spends much of his spare time restoring them. He is also an avid history buff.