Personality+: Steve Kaplan

En guard! When Steve Kaplan, now an agent sales executive with TouchTone Communications Inc., missed the last cut for his high school baseball team, he was devastated; but little did he know that it would open the door to a world of sword fighting that would eventually have him representing his country in the Olympics.

Steve decided to take a lunge at the fencing team, and boy, did it work out! After fencing in high school, Steve went on to become an NCAA All American at New York University, and then started training with Csaba Elthes, the U.S. Olympic coach who had immigrated to the United States from Hungary in 1957. He had fought at the Russian Front during WWII and once drank gasoline to keep warm, Steve recounts. He didnt have much patience for mistakes. You made them at your peril.

In 1975, Steve won a silver medal in the Pan American Games, and also was a four-time U.S. National Team champion and individual finalist. In 1976, he served as a saber fencer for the 1976 U.S. Olympic team in the Montreal games. Steve went on to be the varsity coach at NYU, 1980 through 1986, and was inducted into the NYU Athletic Hall of Fame in 1996.

For the past four years, Steve has been working with inner-city youngsters as a fencing coach at the Cobra Fencing Club in his hometown, Jersey City, N.J. My goal is to help them realize their dreams through fencing, Steve explains. Fencing teaches them how to focus and develop positive social skills, as well as help them to acknowledge that their actions directly influence the results they achieve, and that they dont have to be defined by their immediate surroundings. The club focuses on teaching beginners the fundamentals of the sport in a friendly, supportive atmosphere. Some of our young fencers are super talented and it would be really something if one of them could make the 2016 Olympic team, Steve says.

But fencing is not Steves only forte. As an agent sales executive with TouchTone, Steve is responsible for maintaining agent relationships while gaining new ones, assisting in agent orientation, and training and addressing agents business needs. He says that with more than 25 years of sales experience, he thinks he knows what makes both customers and agents tick.

Steves first job: Caddy at age 12 at the Glen Oaks Country Club in Queens, N.Y.

Steves other talent: When Steves not assisting an agent or wielding a weapon, hes a rhythm guitarist in a gypsy swing jazz band called Djersey Django.

Words to live by: Like the cobra, the fencer must strike so that the touch is felt before it is seen. Aldo Nadi, one of the greatest fencers of all time. This is also, Steve explains, how the club he coaches at got its name.

Greatest wish: World peace, and one more Stanley Cup for the Rangers, oops, thats two.

Thoughts on telecom: The telecom industry is continuously evolving due to advancements in different technologies and applications especially in the wireless and VoIP arenas. This creates countless opportunities for service providers and their telecom agents, which in turn only benefits the consumer.

Do you know someone who has Personality+? Were looking for interesting characters in telecom to take the spotlight! Please send nominations to Cara Sievers at [email protected].