The Fiber Optic Association

4 BUSINESS VIEW MAGAZINE VOLUME 10, ISSUE 7 training that helps professionals gain the certification they need. This technical information is offered through the FOA website along with textbooks, a Reference Guide, videos on YouTube, and social media posts to its professionals. “In order to create our own certification, we needed to have a library of our own reference materials,” Hayes says. He authored the first fiber optics certification book in 1997 that highlighted the knowledge, skills and abilities, and technical knowledge needed for success in the field. After the FOA was formed, Hayes and other early adopters were running industry-wide conferences for fiber optics by the late 1990s. “We’d build a fiber optics surveillance system right there in a hotel room where (the conference) was held,” says Hayes. Yet, even when it was formed in the mid-1990s, FOA was created as a virtual organization. It has never had a true brick-and-mortar headquarters, with Hayes and his wife moving its “headquarters” (which is also their home) from Boston out to Santa Monica, California, around a decade after the association was founded. He is proud of the fact that the FOA was one of the first professional societies to start after the wide commercialization of the Internet began. The FOA was chartered as a non-profit and remains so today. Says Hayes, “Our goals haven’t changed in nearly 30 years, and I don’t expect they will anytime soon.” Between that non-profit status and its remote existence, the FOA has successfully maintained a low overhead, thus reinvesting fees and income into growth and education. A certifying body rather than a membership-based organization Hayes is quick to point out that FOA doesn’t actually have members. It operates solely as a certifying body. But the impact of that body is significant. Since its inception, the FOA has certified more than 89,000 fiber optics professionals around the world. He says nearly 50 percent of all technicians certified by the association live outside of the U.S. The most common certification offered by the association is the Certified Fiber Optic Technician designation. Training for that certification covers a wide variety of disciplines including installation, splicing and termination, fiber testing, and more. Says Hayes, “Many global companies within the industry will require professionals to get certified through us. Organizations in Europe, Asia, and Africa require such certification. The United Arab Emirates is one country where an overwhelming number of fiber optics technicians are FOA-certified. “We adhere to international standards that are usable anywhere in the world,” Hayes says.