First off, thank you very much for your compliments regarding the Scottsdale team and Dustin. We have a great team there! Dustin has been with us for 10 years and one of the Regional Sales Managers for the past year. He has been a big part in helping with the transition that has taken place this year.
I wanted to clarify a couple of things you mentioned in your post. I actually worked for Bob Prall back before he sold his business and helped to create AVAD and I worked in the building that later became the first AVAD branch. Since then they moved into a new location down the road under the Ingram ownership, and then earlier this year moved off of Princess under the new ownership. Since the beginning of AVAD in AZ I believe we have been in 3 locations over the past 15 or so years.
AVAD has only been sold twice, the first time was to Ingram Micro which was about 11 years ago, and then to the new owners which was mid last year. The current 2 owners are very involved in the business daily with our President being based in our Scottsdale corporate office and our CEO coming in twice a month for a week, but very active every day, even when he is remote. Both of them are industry guys who at one point own and ran Klipsch, and our CEO was also the President at Harmon for about 20 years. He also owned a manufacturing company that built some of the biggest brands in the industry. I mention this because they aren't just money guys with no industry experience. While we might be the largest distributor out there I can assure you that our focus is to operate like a local independent distributor with the benefits of larger buying power and services. We are definitely not there yet, but we are an independently owned company ran by industry guys.
All of that being said, there has certainly been confusion over the years and while you have had a good experience with our team, there are plenty of people around the country and in this group that have had issues we are working to fix and my explanation above doesn't change any of that. Just giving you some clarity on some of AVAD's AZ back story.
It seems like you are in AZ. Our corporate office is less than a mile from the Scottsdale branch. Reach out to Dustin and let's all get together and grab lunch. Would love any input you could provide us on ways we could improve, or at a minimum it's a free lunch and a thank you for your support. Let us know when you're available.
