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InfoComm Recognizes Industry Achievement

InfoComm presents its Green AV, Women in AV, and other AV industry awards.

InfoComm Recognizes Industry Achievement

Jun 1, 2010 11:12 AM

InfoComm International announced several awards at the InfoComm 100, a conference designed to bring together top AV industry thought leaders and volunteers.

Harald Thiel Volunteer of the Year Award

InfoComm presented its Harald Thiel Volunteer of the Year Award to John Pfleiderer, CTS-D, CTS-I, of Cornell University. Pfleiderer is an industry veteran with more than 30 years of communications experience. He has been a strong advocate for InfoComm’s certification and education programs and the role these programs have in creating a well-trained workforce that is grounded in strong technical knowledge. He served on the InfoComm Board for three years, and he has chaired several InfoComm councils and committees, including the Technology Managers Council and the CTS Renewal Committee. He has also served as a member of the InfoComm Academy Adjunct Faculty for three consecutive years, and he was part of the InfoComm Membership and Professional Education and Training Committees. Pfleiderer has participated in many CTS-D and CTS-I exam review meetings and has served on the Scheme and Technical Committees for both the CTS-D and CTS-I.

Women in AV Award

InfoComm International presented its Women in AV Award to Helène Andersen, CTS, of AVI-SPL, and Laureen Jones, CTS, IT teaching services manager at Victoria University. The Women in AV Award was created by InfoComm to raise awareness of the growing role of female professionals in the male-dominated field of audiovisual technology. These award winners are in the upper echelon of AV professionals and symbolize the strength of entrepreneurship and excellence in technology management.

For more than 35 years, Andersen has distinguished herself as an AV professional dedicated to breaking down barriers and building networks. Her roles have included everything from sales support to running a multimillion dollar AV business. Andersen was one of the first women to hold a management role in an AV company and to provide direct sales leadership. She has served on numerous Dealer Advisory Councils and the InfoComm Board. Andersen was a board member of the dealer network PSNI. In her current role as general manager at AVI-SPL, Andersen runs the Boston-area office servicing New England. She is a strong supporter of industry training, encouraging employees to earn their CTS and educating clients through Lunch & Learns.

Laureen Jones, CTS, has coordinated audiovisual solutions to support teaching, learning, and research at Victoria University in Wellington, New Zealand, for more than 12 years. As a member of the University’s Information Technology Services senior management team, she has provided strategic and operational leadership on a wide variety of AV issues. She has overseen a transformation of a university that would occasionally wheel in a CRT projector into a classroom to managing more than 200 spaces with fixed AV technology across four campuses.

Young AV Professionals Award

InfoComm presented its Young AV Professionals Award to Joseph A. Legato IV, CTS-D, CTS-I, of Verrex Corporation and Jennifer H. Willard, CTS, of the California Administrative Office of the Courts. The Young AV Award was created by InfoComm to recognize up-and-coming professionals in the audiovisual industry. These award winners are held in the highest esteem by their AV industry colleagues of all ages.

Joseph A. Legato IV, CTS-D, CTS-I, is a project management supervisor for Verrex in Mountainside, N.J. He is a champion of project management’s role in the success of AV systems integration. He oversees Verrex’s project management team, serving as a mentor and setting the company’s project management policies and procedures. Legato places strong importance on the technical aspects of AV design and integration, and has earned all three of InfoComm’s certifications.

Prior to joining Verrex, Legato was a lead AV technician at McCann Systems, a technical support representative for Sprint PCS, a network integration field engineer at Lucent Technologies, and an installation technician at Cross Roads Audio Video.

Jennifer H. Willard, CTS, is a supervising AV/video Systems technical analyst for the California Administrative Office of the Courts in San Francisco. She is the primary AV staff person reviewing the work of architects and consultants on more than 13 new courthouse design and construction projects throughout the state of California. Over the past decade, she established herself as an AV professional, contributing to the design standards for training and conference spaces. Willard serves on InfoComm’s Standards Committee, which established the first performance standard for the AV industry. She also advocates for the AV industry through her participation in American Institute of Architects Academy of Architecture for Justice (AIA AAJ) building industry technology forums. She provides information on audiovisual trial court design standards, trends, and new technologies. She serves as InfoComm’s Performance Standards Liaison to the AIA AAJ.

Prior to joining AOC in 2005, Willard was with Avidex and supported IP-based control systems, digital signage applications, and all other AV systems for the newly renovated 40,000 square foot Cisco Executive Briefing Center.

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InfoComm Recognizes Industry Achievement

Jun 1, 2010 11:12 AM

Green AV

For the first time, InfoComm International recognized the green initiatives of its members. The entries revealed ingenious ways that audiovisual companies are operating to reuse, reduce and recycle resources. The winners include:

AVW-TELAV Audio Visual Solutions
Corporate sustainability is more than a slogan for AVW-TELAV Audio Visual Solutions, which has woven green practices into every operation of its business. AVW-TELAV has had a green policy in place since March 26, and its leadership is evident at the highest levels and with each and every employee.

AVW-TELAV focused on its own business processes first and now works with the communities and customers it serves to reduce its impact on the environment. These practices are flourishing.

A Green Committee of 10 employees throughout Canada develops ongoing environmental solutions for the company. As a result, they’ve been a conduit for reducing gaffer tape use by 50 percent, inspiring a general manager to become LEED accredited, diverting 35 mm slide trays and overhead carts from landfills, using biodegradable bags for the hundreds of headphones they distribute, adding exhaust filtering vehicles to their fleet, and using ethanol-gasoline blend vehicles and low sulfur fuel for diesel vehicles as well as maintaining a rigorous vehicle maintenance program for greater fuel efficiencies.

AVW-TELAV also encourages electronic communications and videoconferencing and makes every effort to sell or recycle used equipment at the end of the product’s life cycle. They give employees slightly used batteries that can no longer be used for equipment purposes. Then they collect the used batteries for disposal by a hazardous waste company. They match overhead projectors and acetate sheets with schools in developing countries. AVW-TELAV uses LED lights which consume 50 percent less electricity almost exclusively. Their warehouse staff donates small cardboard boxes to an organization that uses them to create activity kits for intellectually-challenged individuals.

The energy efficiencies continue in AVW-TELAV’s contributions to green conferences that divert waste, to the Vancouver Convention Centre’s Platinum LEED certification, to AV designs and installations that reduce power and raise awareness for conservation efforts. AVW-TELAV’s green practices only seem limited by the imagination of its employees.

Scott Walker, CTS-D, LEED AP, Waveguide Consulting
“Green is the way of the future, and whether you want to save the world or make more money, you better get on board or risk getting left out.” These are the words Scott Walker lives by and that have made a lasting impact on his staff, the AV industry and the building community.

In 2007, Scott made history when he earned his LEED accreditation and became the world’s first LEED AP, CTS-D. Since then, he has focused on promoting sustainable practices in technology design. He spearheaded the formation of InfoComm International’s Green AV special interest group (SIG). Scott also served as the first chair of InfoComm’s Standards Committee, establishing for the first time performance standards for the AV industry.

Scott’s green passion was felt close to home. So that his own principals, designers and project managers could become advocates and practitioners of Green AV designs, he invested in training and seven staffers have since become LEED accredited. Waveguide’s new headquarters is also a model of sustainability achieving a LEED certification. The intelligent, green building is efficient, comfortable and functional. Located on mass transit bus and rail line with Zipcars within walking distance, the building incorporates LEED principals including daylight views for all employees in a collaborative work environment. Technology is ubiquitous and sustainable with videoconferencing a common practice for staff and client meetings. Last year alone, Waveguide conducted 53 videoconferences offsetting 126,000 miles of travel or 52,000 pounds of carbon.

He has tirelessly advocated how AV contributes to more efficient AV systems and designs. He led the formation of the Green Building Technology Alliance, a consortium including InfoComm and building related associations. He informs through his numerous blogs, articles and presentation. He has represented the industry admirably in meetings with the USGBC and the EPA as well presentations to architects.

Scott believes strongly that AV can and should be green. He has said he believes the true measure of his accomplishments will be having healthy competition for the Green AV Award. He should feel heartened knowing this first year effort produced dozens of truly inspiring entries.

Christie Digital Systems
Christie Digital Systems has come a long way since the 1990s when it first began recycling. In 2007 Christie’s manufacturing facilities in Canada and the United States were certified to the internationally recognized standard IO14001. This brings a formalized framework to manage the environmental aspects of Christie’s products, activities and services.

They currently produce projectors which are among the most efficient in terms of lumen per watt output. Their projectors have automatic shut-off features and power down when in stand-by mode. Eighty percent of the components and 100 percent of the packing are recyclable. Customers do not have to stock, replace or dispose of spare lamps for Christie’s new LED-based projection system introduced in 2009. And the projectors consume less power due to reduced cooling requirements.

Christie’s Digital Cinema has had a significant impact on the environmental performance of the movie industry, eliminating the need to manufacture film and transport media to and from theatres. All of Christie’s products confirm to the EU Directive 201/95/EC Restriction of Hazardous Substances (RoHS), and Christie has partnered with qualified electronic recycling centers across Europe in compliance with WEEE.

Christie shares its expertise, actively participating on InfoComm’s Green AV Task Force, commenting on EPA documents, promoting best practices for manufacturers through InfoComm education, funding Green AV industry initiatives and contributing to InfoComm’s ANSI Power Management Standards group.

Christie has adopted extensive changes in its workplace to further conserve on natural resources including a roof upgrade reducing heat gain in the summer and heat loss in the winter, solar film installed on the inside surface of windows rejecting 80 percent of solar radiation and 99 percent of UV entering the building, and recycling organics (food waste), paper, glass, metal, plastic and true waste resulting in 15.6 metric tons of compostable material over the past 10 months.

Further, Christie has reduced paper usage by 50 percent simply by changing default settings on copiers to print on both sides. They have reduced natural gas usage 41 percent by recycling heat from the manufacturing process to heat their facility in the fall, winter and spring. Employees car pool and work four 10-hour days per week to reduce gas consumption. Christie does all this and remembers to have fun. Employees who endure environmentally-sensible air-conditioning ranges in the summer are rewarded with Ice Cream Fridays.

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