Greetings,
I’ve been lurking here for a couple of years and watching the banter with interest. The exchange of info here is great. Some of the attacks are uncalled for and petty but most are kept in line. I’m usually just too busy with the business to read or reply but I think we have a great resource here.

I started by unloading a truck of Pioneer, Avid, Teac, Advent into a new store that opened which was owned by my neighbors who had been selling out of their house in the fair-trade days to help put them through grad school. That was in ’74 and within two years I was working there vacuuming the carpets, unloading trucks, mounting cartridges and delivering stereo’s, usually to dorm rooms. Some of those “deliveries” were really great for a high-school boy with raging hormones!

I used my babysitting money to buy a H-K 330B, Pioneer PL-10D and pair of AVID 102a’s (CU’s pick of the litter then). I’d also been studying music for years and was classically trained and playing guitar, clarinet, advanced recorder, tympani, trap set in both jazz and rock. I was also getting a lot of exposure to all kinds of music ranging from Chamber Music at Duke, (once with a full Euro quartet on all Stradivarius instruments, still the most amazing thing I ever heard with my ears in my life), all the way though full orchestra, jazz and a big Zep, Who, Dylan fan (saw them all in the ‘70’s).

As I started College at UNC I began selling on straight commission to pay my way through school (yeah, you could actually do that back then). I’d do classes in the morning, work all afternoon and then blow out at 6pm to go to Marching Tarheel band or Orchestra or Pep Band practice where I served as percussion section leader for 3 of my 4 years. Yeah, then most nights I’d end up at the local disco that I installed the sound system for (so got in for free) and drank and danced till way too late. Man, those Crown amps and GLI disco speakers were bulletproof!

Graduated and went to manage the new and biggest Stereo Sound store in Raleigh, NC, then transferred to attempt to manage the floundering Greensboro location before taking a job with Bosch Corp in their Blaupunkt division. (Stereo Sound became NOW! A/V and then was purchased by Tweeter after I left. Car was hot, the line was the best they ever had and retail was changing. I converted a four distributor, one direct dealer territory into a 24 direct dealer, one distributor (for car dealers) territory and doubled then doubled sales again. My brother and I then hung out our own Rep shingle and carried such lines as Nakamichi, Sennheiser, Celestion and we helped launch MB Quart in the US among another dozen lines or so. We decided to go our own ways so we handed off the lines to other reps and split closing the company.

I then joined Sony in their new DC office hired on as a Key Account Sales Rep. While my focus was HiFi, ES and Car, I also was responsible for all product lines for my big customer Crutchfield back in their middle/early days with Sony. I had huge growth in sales and eventually brought in other key reps to help with the workload. Later in my Sony career which lasted almost fifteen years I managed seven reps in the Mid-Atlantic responsible for calling on the growing Circuit, Best Buy, Sears, Wards, Tweeter chains.

I was constantly looking for the “next big thing” and joined A.I. in an equity position as VP of Sales and thought it was the opportunity I had been searching for. Four of us were hired to lend our considerable credibility and to change the company from a mom and pop to a legit powerhouse in the industry. Within 2-3 years, the new team had collectively succeeded in dramatically increasing sales and introducing the new concept of a dealer install-able theater interior product to appeal to a much broader market. The concept was embraced by really smart dealers, some of whom post here regularly and have great success selling theater interiors at all levels by showing the concept to virtually everyone, realizing that people really want it, they just don’t know they can actually afford it and can have it.

The four of us have since all had to leave A.I., but I really believed that if someone did the streamlined, turn-key, theater interior as a system for easier selling, easier installation and quicker turns with much superior quality, engineering and manufacturing, then we could really create a high-volume, quick delivery business for smart custom install dealers. Any successful business must be based on a win-win business model with trust and honesty in all aspects of the business.

@Home Theater Rooms, Inc. was born and two years of intense investment was made in research and development. The concept was born from the installer’s point of view first to make installation as easy and flexible as possible, to make it easy to present and sell and to stick with the 80/20 rule, that 80% of people really want architectural millwork theaters with framed acoustic panels, miter corner columns and upscale soffit system that can stand alone or be used in conjunction with the rest of the “system”. We will NEVER become another “custom” theater manufacturer and we focus on a product line that represents the least confusing and most desirable aspects that the majority of clients are seeking.

In the last few years we have delivered a variety of theater interiors, all with successful installations and very pleased dealers and clients. For the new Lutron Experience at their HQ in PA we partnered with EDG to build a killer, small, 12 x 18 six-seat Theater which is used for every dealer training and client presentation. We have smart dealers with client installations and in-store demo theaters with ClassicA Panels alone, or with Columns and Panels or complete @HomEscape Theater Interiors combined with our modular Tray-Ceiling Soffit System. These dealers are making the effort to PRESENT this concept to all of their qualified clients and building a great additional layer to their already successful businesses.

I’ve taken a wealth of CE industry experience from virtually every viewpoint possible, (big, small, and multi-national company with retail, wholesale, key, regional, big box, account sales, along with independent and factory representative for home, car, audio, video electronics and custom, customizable theater interiors and theater seating) and have put my entire effort and resources into this entrepreneurial endeavor and it is my hope that I can offer a real support business model to the custom install class of trade that I believe is the rock and the foundation for the future of real home A/V solutions to end-users. Our success to date indicates that we have hit a real homerun and the universal reaction to our installations is how pictures just don’t do it justice. Again, thank you for a great installer forum and everyone keep up the good posts and sharing of positive information. Feel free to call for feedback or advice 410-884-9154 or check us out at www.athometheaterrooms.com