rAVe [PUBS] turned 20 this year. And, its parent company, THE rAVe Agency, technically turns 25, the latter was started in my master bedroom in Dallas, TX, in 1998. The point is we’ve been in the industry for a long time and, likely, have a readership much larger than any other in the industry as we have eclipsed 220,000, including rAVe subscribers, readers, and social followers. So, I think we’re more than qualified to manage the industry’s longest-running AV Hall of Fame.

Unlike other pubs that give out hall-of-fame’ish awards annually, we are picky and give them only to people who have not only shaped the industry but are regarded as icons – even by their competition. Our AV Hall of Fame inductees included:

• Mackey Barron, funder of HB Communications (now part of Diversified)
• Johanne Belanger, former president of Freeman
• Len Dozier, founder of Premier Mounts
• Andrew Edwards, founder of Extron
• George Feldstein, founder of Crestron
• Ed Matthews, founder of Technical Industries and former CEO of Visix
• Marty Schaffel, founder of AVI – now AVI/SPL
• Fritz Sennheiser, founder of Sennheiser
• Vebjørn Tandberg, founde rof Tandberg, became the VTC group inside Cisco
• Randy Vaughan, the only person to be president of NSCA and CEDIA
• Chuck Wilson, founder of NSCA
• Adele De Berri, founder of Da-Lite Screen Company
• Cory Schaeffer, co-founder of Listen Technologies and the AVIXA Women’s Council

Today, we will be adding three people to the rAVe AV Hall of Fame, our first additions in over 4-years.

Sam Taylor: Sam has been in the AV market for nearly 40 years. He was the founder of Electrograph – the AV industry’s first value-add distributor and the first to focus on the digital signage market. And he was the founder of Almo ProAV, now part of the Exertis companies. He’s always been passionate, and as a national champion collegiate swimmer at Johns Hopkins University, he developed a drive for producing positive results while also giving back to the people around him. Sam’s commonly known as the “nicest guy in AV” and when announcing his retirement in February, he simultaneously announced he was starting a non-profit to help underserved kids in Kentucky at an HBCU by raising millions of dollars to rebuild a college swimming pool for lessons and to reinvigorate its swimming program.

Nancy Knowlton: Nancy is the current founder, President, and CEO of Nureva, the audio company. Prior to founding Nureva, she was the President and CEO of Smart Technologies, the inventor of the “smart board. Prior to joining the AV market, she was a senior manager at a division of Deloitte. Nancy is a creative and collaborative thinker and has a unique perspective on tech that allows her to see it from the user’s point-of-view. She helped invent a new category of microphone technology, known as Microphone Mist, that uses DSPs and an array of microphones to pick up anyone speaking in a typical classroom with one wall-mounted mic.

Fred Bargetzi: Fred spent 30 years helping to build Crestron into the brand it is today. He passed away in January 2021 respected as a mentor and role model as he was said always to take the time required to make sure anyone who asked him a question felt heard and satisfied with his answer. In addition to having over 20 patents while at Crestron, he helped design the DigitalMedia product line as well as Crestron’s foray into AV-over-IP with the NVX lineup. Fred received a BS in Electrical and Computer Engineering from the University of Buffalo. 

Each one of these people will be recognized at InfoComm 2023 with an award.