The top manufacturer of advanced fiberoptic components for telecommunications and cable television industries. Headquartered in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, JDS Uniphase is one of the top employers in the National Capital Region, next to Nortel Networks and the Government of Canada.
Originally, they were known as JDS Fitel and they had a development arm called Fitel-PMX. They merged with Uniphase a few years ago to create the powerhouse that it is today. They've been in the news lately because of the fact that they're looking to acquire SDL, which attracted the attention of the US Justice Department's Anti-Trust Committee. And like every other high tech company these days, they've been laying off a whole slew of employees.
Jozef Strauss, the CEO of JDS Uniphase, is known for his penchant of wearing a beret everywhere he goes. I don't know how cool that is...I mean, Samuel L. Jackson looks cool wearing those Kangol caps all the time...but Mr. Strauss just looks like he's going to pull out bagpipes at any time.