SPEAKER_00 0:03

Jack one too. I can see you but I can't hear you. How about now? Can't uh I can't hear you, but maybe it's on my end. Let me check.

SPEAKER_03 0:23

Yeah, you should be hearing me. Check, hey, one two, one two, one two. Hey, hey, hey, one, one, two. You can hear me? Yes, I can.

SPEAKER_04 0:33

Okay. I can't hear you, so let's figure out why.

SPEAKER_02 0:36

Alright.

SPEAKER_04 0:38

Um, I see. I I found the problem.

SPEAKER_02 0:42

Okay.

SPEAKER_04 0:43

Okay. Yep, gotcha.

SPEAKER_02 0:44

All right.

SPEAKER_04 0:45

I gotcha now. Problem's on my end. Excellent. No problem. That's a nice setup you have there. I saw that picture on Facebook. I thought, wow, this is pretty cool. I wish I was there.

SPEAKER_00 0:58

So I could sit in that living room. We call this our our whiskey lounge.

SPEAKER_03 1:14

Whiskey lounge. Whiskey lounge. It used to be a home theater and we we just didn't use it. So we switched it up for a whiskey lounge.

SPEAKER_04 1:25

Whiskey lounge and now a recording studio. That's right.

SPEAKER_03 1:30

That's cool. All right, so uh are you ready to go? Sure. I'm gonna play a couple of pre-canned things and then I'll do an introduction and I'll read your bio and then we'll go straight into the questions.

SPEAKER_00 1:45

Okay. Sounds good. If you live long enough, you collect stories, not your own, but the people who pass through your life.

SPEAKER_03 1:57

I'm Larry Howard. I grew up in rural Ohio, and over the years I've known people with stories that will make you laugh, cry, and wonder. This podcast is about those lives. The beautiful, the broken, and everything in between. These are the people I know. The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are those of the guests and do not necessarily reflect the views of the people I know or its host. This podcast is for entertainment and informational purposes only. Scott, thank you for joining me on the People I Know podcast. You're one of my first five guests, and I really appreciate you joining me tonight.

SPEAKER_04 2:44

I'm happy to do it, Larry. Excited about it.

SPEAKER_03 2:48

Scott has held a number of executive level positions in a rapidly evolving high-technology marketplace focused on professional and consumer audio. His background and experience span global sales, marketing, product development, logistics, and establishment of global go-to market distribution channels. Scott has worked with and helped establish highly successful sales teams. Scott has an associate's degree in electronics engineering and a bachelor's degree in organizational management. He lives with his wife of 39 years in Niles, Michigan, has three children and five grandchildren. That's impressive, Scott.

SPEAKER_04 3:36

All boys, all those grandchildren are boys, too.

SPEAKER_03 3:39

Is that right? Yep. Keep us high. Mikes are good for uh sports outings during the holidays.

SPEAKER_04 3:45

Yes, sir.

SPEAKER_03 3:48

If you will, tell me a bit about where you grew up, where you went to high school and then college, if you would, please.

SPEAKER_04 3:56

So I live in Niles, Michigan, and that's actually where I grew up. I grew up in Niles, Michigan. When I when I was in sixth grade, my parents transferred me to a small private school in South Bend, Indiana. So we're kind of right on the border here. So South Bend, and that's where I met my wife. I was I started there at this school in seventh grade, and it was a real small school, but it was just big enough for me to meet the love of my life. So you know, I got lucky there. But you know, Niles is home now. I lived in South Bend for many, many years. I had a job transfer in the 90s that took me out east. So we moved the whole family out east for a little while, but then came back and now this is this is home. I'm a Midwesterner, I guess, just like you. You're from Ohio, so you know, we're both interested.

SPEAKER_03 4:48

What's uh what's Niles known for?

SPEAKER_04 4:52

So there actually, believe it or not, there is a recording studio in Niles. All right. It's called Theory One Productions. It's owned by a friend of mine who's really talented, and he's kind of a big deal. He used to be the front of the house engineer for Jimmy Kimmel in New York. All right. And he records some very famous bands that come into Little Little Niles. But you know, it's a very small town. We have the Apple Festival every year. So there's this is the fruit growing region through the throughout this area. So we got, you know, there's a lot of fruit festivals. There's a blueberry festival, there's the apple festival, there's probably a peach festival. So there it's just a good, good old Midwestern town, you know, very down-to-earth, super friendly people, just just real nice. Did you play sports in high school? I did. So being in a small school, my my options were limited, but it was all about basketball. So, but I'm only six foot tall. So, you know, but in it, but because even though I was sort of low short in stature, I didn't have a lot of competition. So I was able to play, I was like a power forward. I played basketball all through high school. I loved it. You know, just and just a little bit of soccer. But we were always active.

SPEAKER_03 6:14

And where did you end up going to college?

SPEAKER_04 6:18

So my my parents, I had I I had a great upbringing. My parents were awesome. We did not have a lot of money. You would say we were poor, but I I never knew it. You know, I never felt it. I never ever thought that we had no money. That's that's how good my parents were. Because they just I had so much confidence as a kid. I never felt inferior, different, nothing. And but when it came to college, there wasn't a lot of wasn't a lot of money. So we and I was I was a mechanical, mechanically inclined kid. I was kind of a nerd. I loved tinkering with electronics, I love taking apart motors, I had a motorcycle I'd fix all the time. And so my parents, to their credit, recognized like, okay, we got to encourage this kid to go to someplace where he could, you know, sort of expound and grow his natural skills. So I went to a small school called Valparaiso Technical Institute. And I got I graduated there with uh with an engineering associate's engineering degree. Now I work with a lot of engineers. They say, well, that doesn't count because I'm not a double leader or anything like that. I I might not have been smart enough, I don't know, but I got an associate's degree in electronics engineering, Apple Tech. And then later in life, you know, many years later, I had my kids, everything else. I went and got a degree in organizational management. I got my bachelor's degree. So I I felt good about finishing that. It was very hard to do it later in life. Yeah. Anybody that's got their degree later in life knows how tough that can be, you know, when you're working and you got kids and you're traveling, but I was able to knock it out and had a lot of support too along the way to do it.

SPEAKER_03 7:57

What what did your parents do for work?

SPEAKER_04 8:00

So my dad was a uh machine shop supervisor. So he had he'd worked in a factory and managed a machine shop. He was a supervisor there, and and the manufacturing industry in this area sort of took a took a hit. You know, it was it was it was there was a lot of churn, a lot of companies moved out of the area. So my dad, I remember my dad, uh he's passed away now, but I remember him sometimes coming home saying, Well, I got laid off today. And but even though I had that had to be extremely stressful for him, I still, as a kid and as as a teenager growing up, when these things would happen, I never felt scared. And I, you know, it and you know, I told my I tell my mom this, my mom's still alive. And I said, Mom, you know, you guys were struggling, but for whatever reason, and my brother will say the same thing. I have one brother. I never felt scared. I never felt like I was never worried about I had everything I needed. There was just never any issue, you know. So yeah, my dad was, and then my mom, she worked odd jobs. She was a librarian, an assistant librarian for a while, and she worked for one of the local high schools, and she did secretarial work, so she was just doing different things, but mostly just staying home, taking care of us, my my my rowdy brother and myself.

SPEAKER_03 9:23

I'm thinking about your dad, I think about Mike Rowe when you're mentioning what he did. You know, guys that have skills with their hands, there's always work. And I think there always had been, for sure, during the the industrial revolution in our country. But even now, you know, guys that are machinist or tool and die guys, there's a lot of work for them. And I think anyone who is good with their hands and just good people always had the ability to get the next job. For sure. It's sort of like that's what your dad was.

SPEAKER_04 10:06

He was, you know, he'd find something else. And, you know, nowadays I think there's a there's a big lack of tradespeople, you know, people that can go out and do this work. It's a there's there's plenty of work in that area for people that want to find it. And and my dad was was good at a lot of things. And he I remember growing up, he was always we were always working on the car together, and we we lived on a house, there was a little berm. I'll tell you this one quick story. There was a little berm out by the road, and my dad could park the car on that berm, and it would give us a lot of room underneath the car. So we we can work on different things, and so there was always tools laying out by the road, and my dad had to make a make a run to the store or something. He goes, Hey, just just stay out here and watch my tools. And I said, No problem. Well, I had this cockamami idea that I would take one of the screwdrivers that was laying there and I would sort of tuck it inside my shirt and laid down there like I had accidentally stabbed myself. And so I was waiting for him. I was looking down the block, waiting for him to come around the corner. And when I saw him come around the corner of his truck, I laid there with the screwdriver sticking, looking like it was sticking out of my chest, and he pulled in the driveway. He didn't even put the car in park, he came out screaming. My mom had to reach over with her foot to break the and I I heard all the screaming. I stood up immediately because I was scared, and of course, the screwdriver just falls out. Oh, I felt so bad putting them through that. Little kid stuff that you do, you know.

SPEAKER_03 11:45

I my dad got me a go-kart, and it it didn't have a clutch, it was direct drive. So it looked like a little kind of like a slot car. And uh I was so eager to drive that thing. And we worked on it and worked on it, finally got it running, and we lived next to an alley that went downhill, hit a road, and then dropped off sharp down a road called Pig Alley.

SPEAKER_02 12:15

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 12:16

So we were heading down, and I I don't know really what the expectation was where I was supposed to go or do, but he started pushing me, and that thing fired up, and I shot down the road like a rocket, and I remember smiling and looking back and watching him like run and and trying to catch it, and the the way to stop it was there was just a piece of metal that would hit the spark plug and short it out and kill the motor. And that's what he was reaching for. And I had my foot on the floor and I was gone. And he made one last attempt and missed it, and ended up on his face on the on the on the road, and I took off down the road, turned into the church parking lot off to the right, was buzzing around there, trying to figure out where he was, and he came walking down earlier, uh slightly bloodied up, but I think he still had a big smile on his face because that thing took off and ran just beautifully.

SPEAKER_04 13:23

And and you weren't scared, you were just you were ready to go. I thought you might be out of control, not knowing what to do, but if you were you were in control, no big deal.

SPEAKER_03 13:33

Scott, I would say I've been comfortable being uncomfortable my whole life in one way or another. And I've always enjoyed speed, so that that was a lot of fun. So you get your associate's degree in electronic engineering, then what was that first step into work in in our industry?

SPEAKER_04 14:01

So that that's an amazing, that's an amazing sort of funny story to me, anyways. So while I was in uh Valparaiso Tech, I I had an I had a side job as a janitor in the administration building. So I was up there every day after my classes, emptying trash cans, sweeping floors, cleaning the bathrooms. That's what I did to give myself a little extra spending money. And I was in the dean's office, literally emptying his trash can. And the dean's phone rang, and it was a local company in Chesterton, Indiana called Commercial Audio Systems. And the owner was on the other line and the other end of the line, kind of in a panic, saying, Hey, we just lost our tech. Do you have anybody there that knows a little bit about electronics that come help us out? And I'm just emptying the trash can. And he goes, Oh, yeah, there's a guy right here. Let me let you talk to him. And he handed his phone to me, and I pick up the phone and and I have a conversation with the owner of this company, and she said, Well, you know, can you come over this afternoon, later this afternoon? I'll stay late just so we can talk. I said, Yeah, sure. About a 20-minute drive, I drove over there and I got the job. So now I'm a part-time tech working for commercial audio systems, and and this company, they they were a traditional 70-volt audio contractor. They did banks and churches, they did a lot of drive-thru intercoms back in the day before wireless. And so, and I just fell in love with it because it sort of blended my passion of just using my hands and the mechanical side of things, and plus the electronics, and it fit right in with what I was being trained for at school. So I just fell into this all because I was emptying the trash can in the dean's office. That's that's one of those things where you know you get you just get right place, right time.

SPEAKER_02 16:03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 16:04

And I just loved it. So when I graduated from Valpa Tech, I started working there full time.

unknown 16:09

Awesome.

SPEAKER_04 16:10

As a tech, driving around a van, doing maintenance calls and installs and learning the trade.

SPEAKER_03 16:16

Tell me if you remember when you were working on those drive-thru systems, did you come across a ton of chewing gum on the ground where people would stop and talk and place their orders?

SPEAKER_04 16:32

Oh my goodness, yes.

SPEAKER_03 16:34

I remember that vividly.

SPEAKER_04 16:36

Under the on the ground, under the table, stuck up underneath the tables. My my craziest experience was so in the day, we did a lot of McDonald's drive-thru intercoms all around Chicago, everywhere. That was kind of a bread and butter business, just installing and servicing these intercoms. And back in the day, they were toggle switches. You know, you push them down to talk and lift them up to listen because there was no wireless. I mean, I'm old. Let's just face it. And those toggle switches would go bad. You know, you've got a lot of use, there's a lot of sort of grease and oil in the air. And so I had replaced probably hundreds of them at this point in time. And I walked into this McDonald's somewhere in Chicago, I guess, and the plug to unplug the little box on the wall. I couldn't get to it. It was behind all these stainless steel counters and stuff. And I thought, well, I've I've replaced hundreds of these switches. I can I can do this, no problem. There's a there's a bunch of soldering on the back of it to remove all the wires. So I'm in there and I'm just doing my thing. And they were so happy to see me, by the way, because it was lunch hour rush. They had cars backed up around the building and they couldn't communicate, and it was just chaos. So I felt good. I was gonna be the hero. And I'm working on that little toggle switch, and all of a sudden, I just I it it dropped out of my hands down into the onto the circuit board, and it somehow connected across the mains coming in, and everything inside that little box just started flaming. And smoke is pouring out into the restaurant and out through the serving area, and I'm now frantically trying to find this plug. I'm moving things and shoving things out of the way, and I finally get it unplugged, but now they're smoke-filled. And I was it was a very embarrassing moment and life lesson. Don't take shortcuts. I should have taken time to unplug that thing. So I had to, yeah, I need a little crow that day.

SPEAKER_03 18:42

Uh, that's a lot. So and and from there, did you go to Crown?

SPEAKER_04 18:49

Yes. So, so I spent about a year and a half or so there after I graduated. And I was dating my wife at the time, and we had gotten engaged. And my wife that I met in seventh grade, we had, you know, she broke up with me, by the way, a little side story in eighth grade because I had body odor. And, you know, when you're going through puberty, all everything's changing all at once. You're not sure what's going on. And I just somehow missed the fact that deodorant was going to be suddenly required in my life. So she wrote me a note saying, Yeah, you stink. So she broke up with me, but we patched that all up.

SPEAKER_03 19:28

So we got we got back together, and then while we were twice is a beautiful thing.

SPEAKER_04 19:33

Yeah, I take two showers a day now, too. So I'm I'm super paranoid about it. But we were we were friends, we were best friends. We stopped, you know, the whole boyfriend girlfriend thing in junior high was you know, we were just good, good friends. And we both were dating other people. We came home from college and met one, and we thought, well, let's just let's be more of a friend. So we got back together, and so I was about to get, I was engaged now, and working for this small company, and I I thought, I think I need to go somewhere that's maybe a little bit bigger, maybe gives me a more chance to grow a career in this industry. I already loved it at that point, and so it was actually a connection through my mom who knew some knew a secretary that worked at at Crown and told me about a job opening in their service department. And so I applied and I was part of a stack of resumes there, and I called one day. This is another one of those maybe call it a God moment or just being lucky, but I called one day and and the HR person pulled my resume out and said, Well, we don't have anything right now, but if we do, we'll let you know. You know, the kind of classic answer that you get. But it kind of put my resume on the top of the stack. And literally that afternoon, the service manager came in and said, I just lost a tech who quit. You got anybody that's qualified? And she said, Oh, well, I just this guy just called, so why don't you talk to him? And so I got the call and I went in and I I became a service tech at Crown and I I took a cut and pay at that point, but but I figured it was a good move because I was just my job at Crown started in April of 1987. Got married in February of 1987. So I had just gotten married and I started this new job with a cut and pay. So it was a little tough, you know, a little tough to try to get through it, but that's how I got started. I started as a bench tech, and they started you've got they started the you've got uh projectors I can see in your background, but they started me a crown, maybe some people know this, but they used to make real to real tape recorders. So that was one of their products. And so they trained me to repair those. They were still servicing them at the time. So I was real to real tape recorder, and then eventually started repairing amps, and I could repair all everything they made.

SPEAKER_03 22:01

What market were those real reels used in?

SPEAKER_04 22:06

So the founder of Crown, a guy by the name of Clarence Moore, was a very he was a devout Christian man and he supported missions. And he originally, and I might have the details, my brain's a little fuzzy now, but I might have the details mixed up, but he he was using these, created these tape recorders for language translation and then mission work. So he he he designed he had a there was a tube amplifier attached to it so they were out using it in missions. So I think that was the original concept. And he had his farm in Elkart, Indiana, and he cleaned out the chicken coop. That store part of the story I remember and he started tinkering and building these things in his chicken coop on his farm.

SPEAKER_03 22:53

No kidding.

SPEAKER_04 22:55

That was the first product. Was he a minister or just part of missions? Part of missions. I don't think he was a minister per se. He was just a a real handy guy that had this farm. The company was not called crown at the time. It was called International Radio and Electronics Corporation.

unknown 23:13

Okay.

SPEAKER_04 23:14

But the name of the tape recorder was Crown or the Crown Prince. Reference to Jesus Christ.

SPEAKER_02 23:21

Interesting.

SPEAKER_04 23:22

And so the it was the Crown was a model name but it became known as Crown. So eventually the company name became Crown Audio.

SPEAKER_03 23:35

We deal with a company on a daily basis and they're going through that right now where they had a name for the company and they had a product and now pretty much that product has become who they are. Yeah and that's I think that's probably very wise marketing. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 23:54

Then um Gerald Stanley came into the company Gerald Stanley is a brilliant engineer I think he went to Michigan State and he brought this electronics engineering skill to the company and he was the one that designed the the DC 300. I was going to get to that but thank you for getting that all right well he he designed this product and it was I think the world's first high powered solid state ant and so the DC 300 sort of changed the whole trajectory of Crown you know eventually now it was designed it was DC so zero to 20 kilohertz so you could put a one and a half volt battery on the on the input and get I can't remember now 30 something volts DC on the output or something like that. So it could be used in industrial applications but then some guys decided to power speakers with it and it was the best sounding amp out there you know because of the just the whole the way it just could could push those drivers and on the on the on the speakers and so it just took off and then that changed the whole trajectory and Crown became a full-on amplifier company at that point.

SPEAKER_03 25:09

Do you do you know what year that was introduced?

SPEAKER_04 25:14

Definitely before my time there I think it was in the early 70s or so one say early 70s I think they were building them there was a fire at Crown I think in on Thanksgiving 1972 that that uh destroyed the plant kind of a sad story in the history uh but I think they were making them at that time that that's a good question Larry I don't remember exactly I think it was early to mid-70s.

SPEAKER_03 25:41

My my recollection of it is that you they they didn't die and you couldn't kill them and the amount of stories and pictures I have seen where an entire rack fell off the back of a truck or out of the back of a trailer or multiple racks fell out of a trailer when it was going around a corner and whoever was driving or riding with it picked them back up, put them in, took them to the show wired them up and they worked yeah I that's true. Yeah I remember hearing story after story that you just couldn't kill them.

SPEAKER_04 26:25

Yeah that's true. I guess you'd call it marketing but they would retell these stories and take pictures of hey this sat in a mud puddle overnight and you'd ride it out and and turn it on and it was it worked the next day. You know stuff stuff stuff like that.

SPEAKER_03 26:47

Yeah. So when you started what was the premier amplifier?

SPEAKER_04 26:53

So Microtech was was kind of new to the scene they were still making I believe they were still making DC amplifiers DC 150 DC 300 but microtech was was a smaller form factor higher powered amp and so it I remember seeing a lot of those that was sort of brand new and then microtech eventually became macrotech and macrotech became a a premier amplifier for install and touring for many years I I I visited there once and I remember we we were held up in the lobby I believe while the employees were having a prayer to start the day.

SPEAKER_03 27:42

Yeah. Was that traditional and normal each day?

SPEAKER_04 27:46

Yeah there was that's that there was a an optional assembly I think it lasted about 15 minutes and so everyone could take a break and come into this this main room and then somebody would get stand up and say a little devotional and and an inspirational message of some kind a prayer and that was just part of the culture you know because heritage with Clarence Moore and then his son Clyde who who was the president when I joined the company very good guy. And that was just a culture. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 28:19

And did that continue for a long time it did.

SPEAKER_04 28:23

It continued for for a long time and and you know it wasn't always optional. So it was not like in your face and it was all low key so it was very much accepted. You know it's like hey I'm not that's that's not for me. Okay that's fine. And you were not judged for it but I don't actually remember when it stopped I think you know Crown was eventually acquired and sort of the the culture sort of changed. I wouldn't say necessarily bad in a bad way but just things change you know when you when you get acquired and you know new new ownership comes in you know there's a there's always a different culture that's got to set in and I think that's you know some things changed.

SPEAKER_03 29:01

So I was trying to remember when when we met and I believe it was while I was at Tannoy might have been and I think I might have been at Bose at that point because during the mid-90s I moved on from Crown and and took a job at Bose moved out to the East Coast and then our mutual friend Daryl we met.

SPEAKER_04 29:23

Yeah it might have been during that time Larry I've I've been racking my brain too I I think it was probably Play Network play network that we met through them. Yeah yeah play network is always play network was was there was always such good people in that company and around that company we'd all hang out and meet each other and you know that's probably that's probably when it was yeah we had a lot of fun with them and you know that it's great to be around companies like that that are on the cutting edge that are doing something different and unique and you get to be a part of that spark and then watch it just take off. Yes for sure that's one of the things about our industry Larry that I appreciate so much is that it's still it's pretty small. Absolutely and and so the people that you meet eventually become your friends whether it be work colleagues or just people you associate with like you and I or your customers those are my friends today.

SPEAKER_03 30:29

I mean that's that's that's my friendships and I love that and I'm my competitors are my friends my customers are my friends my work colleagues my former colleagues that's my network yeah I I think speaking for myself I am incredibly fortunate to have so many great friends that I wouldn't have known otherwise and I think it's always been what really drives me to want to do more and better in the industry than I have in the past is I want more friends like the ones I've had and this industry is not short on good people and it it for me it's it's been a blessing and I certainly have a lot more friends that I've met and grown that are in the industry than I have outside of the industry. Yeah same same with me so LEA is your current company and I'm I'm not gonna try to I I I want you to tell me about it how how it was formed and how it's doing.

SPEAKER_04 31:43

Sure. So yeah LEA so crown was eventually acquired by Harmon and and overall I would say that that's a good thing. That was a good thing the company you know that that infusion of all you know this billion dollar multi-billion dollar company coming in and the expertise and just the experience and all these great brands you know when you combine that with with what we had at Crown that was a win-win and so the company got acquired in 2000 I was global VP of sales at Crown at that point in time. So I had grown my my little my tech my tech job and I got had a lot of mentors along the way by the way is not not me people help helping me and giving me chances but um became I came became part of the Harman family in 2000 and spent 18 years there and uh the crown grew I grew within it I learned a lot there was a lot of challenges I learned a lot clashing cultures and how to manage all that and you know just made a lot of mistakes along the way but learned a lot along the way too sure sure um eventually for some sound business reasons you know you never can argue about these things but the the crown facility was closed in in northern Indiana Elkart where Crown was based and so manufacturing moved the engineering teams were moved so things were dissolved there. Well LEA founder Blake Augsburger was the former president of Crown so he was brought in to be the president of Crown after the acquisition by Harman. So he was the first person to run the company after the acquisition so Blake became my boss in 2000. So I've known him now for 26 years. Blake ran Crown very successfully and then he ran Harmer Pro very successfully and eventually semi-retired in right around 2016. Well shortly after that that the announcement came out that Crown was going to close in Elkart Indiana. And so Blake wrote the business plan to start LEA he just thought well I I know this company I know the industry I know the people having he's you know he lived in this area and managed it for so long so Blake is the owner of LEA he founded it and the idea was to hire these super talented engineers that were now suddenly available and create something and there wasn't the the goal wasn't to be just another amplifier company that was not the goal we thought well the world you know has a lot of amplifier companies a lot of good ones we need to do something different so the idea was to create a technology company with a cloud-based amplifier something that was really quite different that was all Blake's vision and I was fortunate enough to to come on at the at the early days to set up the global sales network um so I left Harman uh on my own accord and and you know I always tell people I've had people quit you know if people work for me quit I've seen people leave jobs and start new things and and my advice to everyone is you know if you're leaving because you're running to something that you think is cool and exciting that's a good that's a good reason. If you're leaving because you're running away from something because you're stressed out and you don't like the work anymore you don't like the people like you're just gonna run into the same problems. Because that's that's not a good reason to leave. You know it's so when when I heard about LEA and and I started talking to Blake I thought oh this is this is a cool opportunity that I'm gonna run to and it's my first time ever being part of a startup it was quite scary leave sort of the you know the mothership and go out and and have you know have this massive sales momentum to nothing overnight. But I mean it's been seven and a half years now and it's been I'm I'm I'm super grateful for the leadership for Blake's mentorship the whole the whole being part of it it's been a been really been challenging but also exciting to see what happens when you put a bunch of people together just be passionate about trying to grow something.

SPEAKER_03 36:00

Yeah. What what are some current incentives with the company? So incentives in terms of what do you mean market incentives by direction new products.

SPEAKER_04 36:12

Oh okay gotcha yeah so so we are LEA from the beginning has been installation focused we don't make a touring oriented amplifier we don't make a retail oriented product so it's all installation focused on purpose on purpose that was that was the idea because we built a technology tech technologically advanced amp and and so you know the retail space it's it wasn't really right for us. It's a little bit more commodity driven that's not where we wanted to be and the touring space a lot of amplifiers and speakers are get sold together. And so you can't so it's a little difficult to penetrate that if you don't have you know a package that you can sell. So the sweet spot for us was integration both residential and pro-commercial integration and so that's really what we try to do. That was our focus we make an amplifier that that can drive any kind of load so it's kind of a chameleon it can drive 70 volt loads it can drive eight ohm four ohm direct speakers so it was very adaptable really easy to use we're not we're not a commodity driven type of price point but we're still competitive so you know the price is where it needed to be and and so that was really our our mantra that we tried to follow is hey this is this is a great and and the amplifiers were smaller at the beginning so we started sort of building our our base in the commercial sector and then we as the amplifiers got bigger we started growing into more pro applications you know high performance systems line arrays dragon line arrays stadiums those kinds of things so that's how it went and now in terms of to answer your question you know what I'm constantly trying to do and the company's trying constantly trying to think about is you know where's our weak spots in terms of market penetration. And so you look at things like cinema and cruise ships and you know there's all kinds of it the great thing about our industry Larry is that there's sound everywhere. True you know you go you go to a small coffee shop there's audio playing you go to a theme park there's audio you go to a rock concert there's audio so if you think about everywhere there's audio there's a spot for us and so I never have lack of options to go look for business never so what you know thinking back about Crown and the type of company it was what type of company is LEAR so I we're we're our own company you know we we we created our own identity but there's some core DNA that I believe never changed and that is uh impeccable reliability and impeccable sound integrity constantly innovating innovating I mean everything is designed and engineered by our team and so we're not trying to be a Me Too company we're not trying to do those are all sort of foundational elements that are there the culture inside the building when you're part of a startup it's different you know you you you you're you're you're working a lot of hats you're wearing lots of hats you know for me the pressure was you know I'm spending our founder's money you know it's it's his money coming out of his pocket paying my salary so that puts if you're if you're I I'd say if you're a driven good person that puts a lot of pressure on you because it's like hey I don't like that I want to carry my own weight I want to I want to make my way and so it's not it's you cannot hide in a startup you know you you're exposed you got to carry your weight you got to produce you got to make something happen every day. And so there's still that kind of culture like you show up every day you're prepared to work but it's also fun especially in our our sales area you know where we are we play a lot of music you know we we've got to we try to have some laughter and banter we all get along really well I'm really proud of the team that we put together. Is there a company band? Is there there is no company band. All right yeah we yeah there are some musicians around yeah but uh we haven't got that far yet I guess you know we gotta we gotta get there. Maybe maybe it's at the Christmas party yeah yeah anything else you want to tell me about LA LEA just it's it you know it's what's it's very gratifying to see something that you have a hand in building absolutely that's I guess the biggest thing you know you work for a big multi-billion dollar company it's kind of it's a it's a little bit easier to get caught in the the day-to-day routine and the emotions I wouldn't say that I was just settled into my comfort zone but it was really nice to be pushed outside of your comfort zone because then now you realize okay where I was lacking in skills or where I might have been a little bit complacent or maybe a little bit lazy. You know the way we work trade shows is totally different. The way we work everything is totally different. So it's it's a very aggressive sort of hey we got it you know and now you look around and you see all these people that weren't there before and you would think you know as you grow and now you start making money and you're profitable and it's millions and tens of millions of dollars of business and and growing you would think okay I can I can rest back and okay I can take it easy but no you look at all these people and you think if I don't do my job they're not going to have a job. So there is a there's still pressure like that. Drive constant drive constant passion um I really try to I I take sales and maybe you do too it's a noble profession. Not what I set out to do I wanted to be an engineer but it's a it's a noble profession to have and and now as we have younger guys coming in and I'm mentoring people I really try to impart the fact that hey you're you're embarking on a career that's noble don't think because you're a sale salespeople get picked on and and I'm fine with that. That just that's part of it but it's a noble profession. There are skills that you can learn and we really try to teach those skills and and you know help our young people I'm not getting any younger and so we're trying to hire younger people that can come up and learn the trade and learn the customers and do like you and I have build these lifelong relationships which eventually is what makes the job fun.

SPEAKER_03 42:48

We're we're trying to do that I remember the day I I stepped away from the technical side the engineering side to management and my goal that day was to stay educated to the point where I could hang basically in any conversation. So educate myself enough that I would always know what the conversation was about what the capabilities technically were of a product and being comfortable saying that that's my limit. I I understood you right to this point and I've always felt like I've held respect of people for doing that and I could tell you that that through my career I've changed through a lot of different technologies and that's been the drive that I have really enjoyed is just a constant learning and always having some type Of challenge to learn and understand a new technology. But that is what's always kept me motivated, and I think that's one of the greatest things about our industry is we don't sell products that we sold five years ago, certainly not ten years ago, and most likely not two years ago. And that's that's what drives everybody. And you know, the the markets that we're in, you know, you mentioned cruise ships and theme parks. They don't want anything that everybody else has. They want something that nobody has, and that's the drive to build new and better products.

SPEAKER_04 44:48

Yeah, that's true. We're everybody's, and not just us, you know, a lot of great companies are constantly pushing the envelope with technology and trying to make things better, and it's it's a hard road. But we're fortunate in our business that we see a lot of these companies just continuing to push, and that, but you're right, it makes it harder to keep up with the conversation. You know, we we got to be a mile wide and an inch deep of a lot of different subjects. You know, we can go deep in a few areas, but it's okay to say, I don't know. Uh people do respect that. You're right about that.

SPEAKER_02 45:20

Very true.

SPEAKER_03 45:21

I know I know you recently had a a very tragic loss in your life. It was in your son, Riley. I'd I'd like you to talk about that and tell me where it happened, how it happened, how how you learned about it and and how you're doing.

SPEAKER_04 45:41

Yeah. Yeah, that was terrible. We a little over two years now. It's hard to believe. It's it's been a little over two years. It just seems like a blank. But yeah, I was at I was at LEA. I was in my office and I got the call. You know, your son has been found deceased. So those are the words I heard. Your son Riley's been found deceased. So definitely that was the hardest moment of my life at that point. And you you really, I remember sitting in the office thinking, okay, I do need to keep my composure here because I need to leave and I need to go find my wife, and we need to, you know, support each other right now and sort of process what we just heard. So that was very difficult to go through that. Very difficult. And I'm not the only one. You know, we've since met a lot of people who lost their children at a young age, and and you know, it's there's a community out there, you know, we're all part of this very unfortunate club, and we became part of it. So, yeah, we found out, and this was February 20th when we learned about this. So last time I talked to Riley, he lived in Denver. Denver, okay. He was an amazing human being, by the way, just just amazing, and just super good musician. I'm an engineer thinking person, you know, as we talked about earlier.

unknown 47:03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 47:04

And but somehow my wife, we spawned this uh musician. He was so good.

SPEAKER_03 47:09

The drums drums, I'm sorry, go ahead.

SPEAKER_04 47:12

Yeah, drum, drums was his main instrument. Yeah and but eventually he could play anything. I mean, he could play guitar, he could play keyboards, he could play bass. You know, he just had this natural, sort of God-given musical talent. And it went right along with his personality, too. He's just uh really outgoing, gregarious, could make anybody feel at ease, could have a conversation with you, doesn't matter, anybody, and and and be entertaining. He just had game that way. But he he lived in Denver, which is where his older brother lives, and he had an apartment there, and he worked as a he was a shop floor supervisor at a woodworking factory. And so he loved woodworking. So besides playing music and being who he was, Riley, he loved he loved woodworking, and so he got this job working out there, and and they really liked him, and he worked hard at it, and he would ride his bike from his apartment in downtown Denver. He lived very near where the Denver Broncos Stadium is, I forget the name of it, but he would just ride his bike to work because it was a bike path that got all the way there, and it was actually faster than driving. So his bike was his main mode of transportation.

unknown 48:26

Nice.

SPEAKER_04 48:27

And so I talked to him on February 17th, 2024, and he was at work, it was a Saturday morning, and he was just jovial and happy as can be, and I could hear machines running in the background, and he starts telling me the story. He said, Dad, you're never gonna believe this. I'm riding my back to the work, bike to work, and I just out of the corner of my eye, I glance and I see this coach purse lying on the side of the bike trail. And he picks it up, and when he opens it, there's all kinds of drugs in it, you know, obviously illicit substances, there's $110 cash, and he's telling me this story, and he's sort of just laughing about it, and I am too. Like, wow, I can't believe that. Well, Denver, you know, there's a lot of drugs in Denver, and we just have this sort of real casual conversation about it. And and I said, Well, you know, keep the $110 cash, but go turn that other stuff in. And he goes, That's exactly what I'm gonna do. He he agreed, that's exactly what he's gonna do. And I I just thought, you know, he was just so jovial as he found $110 cash, you know, the side of the road in this thing, this purse. And so for reasons that, and that was our last conversation. And I'm I'm happy that it was a happy one and he was happy, but for reasons that we don't know, and I I'll never understand until I see him in heaven someday, is he he decided to sample something that he had found. And we learn later, because there was a there was an investigation, you know, the Denver um they have a whole task force related to drug-related deaths. And so I talked to a detective, and we learned later that there was counterfeit pills in there, stuff that looked like Xanax. And he he had taken Xanax before, he was familiar with it as a prescription. And so we just think he got tempted by something. And unfortunately, it was it was counterfeit, it was pressed with illicit fentanyl. And you know, it only takes a grain of sand worth of fentanyl to kill you, and and so he he sampled sampled it, and the the terrible thing about fentanyl is you do pass out, and then it basically tells your brain you no longer need to breathe. It blocks a receptor in your brain that tells you to breathe. So you just you you go to sleep and you stop breathing. And so that's what happened to him. He was he was by himself in his apartment, and so we did a wellness check. We and you we text our family, we say, I love you every day. We text, we communicate. There's there's constant communication going on. And so the next day, Sunday, we sent a couple texts saying, Hey, how's it going? Whatever, nothing. Monday comes around, he doesn't show up for work. So his boss calls, his boss, Ty, his older brother was always the emergency contact. So something they couldn't get a hold of him. So eventually the call went out to Ty, his brother on on Monday, and then we still weren't able to get a hold of him. And I'm we're sending him, hey Ry, just check in, you know, make sure you tell us you're okay. And then Tuesday morning we decided to do the wellness check, and that's when he was found. So so yeah, it's it's a terrible thing, you know, something I would not wish on anybody. You know, he was 31 years old and just uh a really good human being. So we lost him. And uh the terrible, you know, fentanyl is just a terrible thing, you know, it's just terrible what's going on. And it was accidental. We didn't do anything on purpose. It was a and it was just a random thing, you know. And so people would ask me, you know, you thought you you think about God during this time, and you know, and and I had somebody ask me, so are you are you bitter? And are you bitter God? And no, absolutely not, because God doesn't want us dead. The devil wants us dead. God wants us alive, he wants us to live, he wants us to enjoy everything, enjoy creation. That's why it was made for us. But the devil wants us to dead, and he he will set very elaborate traps to kill you. And he set the most elaborate, I mean, almost impossible set of circumstances to be driving down a riding down a bike path and find something on the side of the road. I mean, he could have just been on his phone or he could have been looking the other direction, and everything could have changed. When I talk to the detective, Detective McKeever, super, super nice guy, you know, there was an investigation trying to figure out, of course, you know, where did he get this stuff? Was he dealing? You know, they have to do all this stuff. And so I'm I I start telling Detective McKeever the story. And when I said the story, I said he found a purse on the side of the bike pad. And then before I could say the next thing, he interrupted me and said, What kind of purse was it? And I said, It was a coach purse. He says, Okay, well, I got a picture here of a coach purse. Wow. So all of a sudden, what I was told and what the investigation determined, everything checked out. And so the they immediately said, Look, some if this kid was doing this young man was doing something illegal and illicit, he's definitely not going to be telling his father this whole story.

SPEAKER_02 54:11

True, true.

SPEAKER_04 54:12

And so, and it just all sort of clicked. The whole everything sort of came into view, you know, what happened. And later on, they had kept his phone, and I eventually got it back. It came back in an evidence bag, which is disturbing. But I eventually got his phone back, and and this is the other lesson, you know, we need to that we I learned and that I like to remind people of is we leave a digital trail our whole life.

SPEAKER_02 54:42

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_04 54:42

And so, what kind of digital trail are you leaving? You know, are you because your digital trail, whether you think it's secret or not, is gonna be exposed someday.

SPEAKER_03 54:52

Certainly can be, yes.

SPEAKER_04 54:54

It can be. And so, you know, once I had his phone, I was able to, you know, get it unlocked, and I was able to find, and it was, you know, he was there was nothing on there that was embarrassing. Nothing. I was super proud of him. I didn't find anything, just fun stuff, actually. Lots of record. We have treasure troves of recorded music and silly videos that he made of himself, and I mean, we have all that. But in his web search history, the last searches were blue pills with these letters on them. Question. So he was researching, you know, what he had. Those are the last things that he was he was on his phone saying, What is this? So his his mind just started becoming becoming just became very curious about what he had, and then eventually he just said, Well, I'm just gonna take a risk on this.

SPEAKER_03 55:50

Well, you know, you you mentioned the devil earlier, and the first thing that popped into my mind was temptation.

SPEAKER_01 56:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 56:00

And what an incredible force temptation is.

SPEAKER_01 56:05

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 56:05

And you know, even for the best of people, temptation is strong. And you know, all all the things you're telling me, obviously, he was a fine young gentleman and not immune to temptation.

SPEAKER_04 56:24

Right. And you know, we go ahead. We all s we all struggle with things, and he had his struggles, but this he was he was in a good place, you know. It's he was in a really good place at the time this happened. So it just, you know, the trap, the trap that got set for him worked, ensnared him.

SPEAKER_03 56:42

And uh when you told me about him, we were in Miami, and well, first I will say the the ease of that conversation impressed me to the point where I I hadn't forgot about it when I asked you to do this. Your demeanor, I believe, is what more people need to hear and understand. How your faith helps you and guides you, and the way you're talking about this is, I believe, what a lot of people need to hear and and and understand, Scott.

SPEAKER_04 57:28

There's there there's three things, you know, that get you through it faith, family, and friends. And the faith part of it, you know, you none of us have ever been to heaven. And, you know, that nobody can validate it really. You know, you're going by what you've been taught, what you read in the Bible and everything else. So naturally now in my situation, I want to know Riley's in heaven. He's he's he's he's having a blast, he's playing drums up there and rocking the house, you know, whatever. But you don't know for sure, right? So doubt creeps in. All these doubts creep in. Is it real? Is everything was I taught? Is it is it really true? And it's like this big funnel. So at the top of the funnel is doubt, doubt, doubt, doubt, and questions and questions and questions. And you can just roll this stuff around in your head. What comes out at the bottom of the funnel? Faith. That's it. You cannot have faith without doubt, it can't exist. And so you do rely on your faith. And I I have no doubt that I will see him someday. I don't have a doubt about it. My faith is strong that way. And the second thing is family, you know, our kids are super strong. Everybody struggles, it doesn't go away. The grief doesn't go away. I don't know if it's easier. You just learn how to manage it better, coping skills, stuff like that. So, but our family's been really strong. We're really tight for each other. You know, my son and daughter, they're just amazing human beings. And and then friends. You know, the outpouring of love that we've had and the social media. I'm not a big social media person, but just the outpouring of comments and helpful, and and the best analogy I've given, I've I've used this several times when I'm talking about it is it's a weight that sits on you. You know, when you go through something like this, terrible, it's very heavy. And I can see now why people have trouble getting out of bed when they go through something terrible because it's a physical weight. It's not, it's emotional, it's spiritual, it's physical. You feel like you weigh 10,000 pounds. You cannot get up. And so what what I've learned is the weight never gets lighter, but your friends help you carry it. So that's the best thing.

SPEAKER_03 59:52

Faith makes you stronger.

SPEAKER_01 59:54

It feels lighter because you're helping got help carrying it.

SPEAKER_00 59:58

Yeah, yeah. What I was gonna ask you what suggestions you have for families in your position.

SPEAKER_03 1:00:09

But you just answered that.

SPEAKER_04 1:00:13

Yeah, I'd say uh it's I say talk about it. I love talking about Riley. I love it.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:00:19

I do not mind sharing his story. Um, I don't mind talking about him to anybody that wants to ask me. So talk about your loved one that you lost. You know, it's to me that's that's therapeutic. And don't be afraid of saying, hey, I'm weak. You know? Don't be afraid of that. Everybody needs help, you know, you gotta reach out.

SPEAKER_03 1:00:42

You you mentioned a group or groups earlier. Is are there any particular groups you would like to point out that people could go to for support?

SPEAKER_04 1:00:52

So for me, there are there are grief counseling groups, there are a lot of good ones. There's books written about how to manage grief. I read some of those. For me, though, it was just doing like you and I are doing, just sitting talking and talking about the experience and kind of leaning on each other. And you know, I have I have friends that have lost their children, you know, and we've had friends that have gone through it after us. And so we reach out to them proactively and say, hey, we we're we're we're a little bit ahead of you. We we can chill you. And you know, oh, this was another amazing thing. So while you're having the whatever they call the visitation, you know, where people are coming through and you get lots of hugs and words of encouragement, all that is was was very therapeutic and nice. But I had a couple of friends who said, hey, that have that had one in particular that lost his son 10 years ago and who would have been the same age as as Riley. He said, Hey, I want you to call me in 30 days. I want to go have coffee or lunch with you in 30 days. And I remember thinking, I wonder why he's saying that. And sure enough, that 30-day mark is one of the toughest because the whole you got to go back to living life. You got to go back to work, you got to go back and, you know, everything in that that first day back to work is the worst. Because you kind of have to, you're faking it. You're just totally faking it, you're faking happiness, you're going through the emotions. And so that's why he wanted to talk to me 30 days later, because he said, I know where you're gonna be in 30 days, it's not gonna be good. And so we had a very nice talk about that and got to sort of explore, like, okay, going back to normal life. Yeah, now what worst part of all this. And you do fake it for a while, and it's okay to fake it for a while. You gotta go through the motions, and then eventually, you know, things sort of settle into a new normal.

SPEAKER_03 1:02:56

And everybody else is faking it with you too, right?

SPEAKER_04 1:02:59

True. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:03:00

So there's there's And that's about communication and breaking breaking it down or giving somebody a look like, hey, let's talk.

SPEAKER_04 1:03:09

And I I think sometimes people are a little hesitant to bring up the subject. Absolutely. That's totally understandable. Um, you don't know how somebody's gonna react. You don't want to be sitting in the middle of business meeting and somebody say, Hey, I'm sorry about your son, and then me start bawling right there in the middle of it, you know. You know, so people are a little hesitant, but I would, at least for me, anyways, it's okay. You know, I like I like talking about him. We all got tattoos. I got a little tattoo, he had two tattoos on his race to rise and prepare. You know, a spiritual thing. He he also had a tattoo, which I will not get because it was, but it he had this wrap, and they conquered him by the blood of the land that was wrapped around his right arm. No, yeah. And when he when he first got his tattoos, like any parent, we were like, oh man, all about this. You know, of course, we were not consulted, but we grew we grew to love him. We loved his tattoos, they were just like so perfect on him. So the our family, we all got sort of matching tattoos of what he had on his body. And I wish I would have done it while he was alive because I'm now super proud of it, but glad I didn't.

SPEAKER_03 1:04:15

How about the uh favor memory of Riley?

SPEAKER_04 1:04:20

Oh my gosh, it was so many, so many, because he was just always so fun and entertaining. He he played his guitar, which I have sitting behind me. We we kept his guitar, and and he always had that thing with him, and and we'd be on the boat on Lake Michigan and he'd be serenading us. Or we'd be in the hotel room in Chicago waiting for a show, and he'd be serenading us. He was constantly singing, serenading, cracking jokes. I think just the mute, the musical memories that we have of just being him. He was also the most ridiculous hugger. He did not hug people in normal ways. It was always just big bear hugs and being picked up, and you know, you cannot hug hug Riley, just a normal little pat on the back that would not do for him. You know, you got you got a big old bear hug out of him.

SPEAKER_03 1:05:10

That's that's fantastic.

SPEAKER_04 1:05:12

So, yeah, so those kind of things. It just it's just concept memories like that. And we get to look back on all the all the music he created and the videos, the funny videos, the amazing music. He was always too afraid to actually put something out there. He would write this music, and it's like, Brian, that's good. Why don't you put it out there? No, no, it's not good enough, not good enough. I can't do it. So he never put anything out there, but we have it.

SPEAKER_03 1:05:38

Wow, that's that's fantastic to know. And to have. Scott, thank you so much.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:45

I I I guess I'd like to end with um maybe your insights to young folks. And to be aware of what happened to Riley.

SPEAKER_03 1:06:07

If you had a had a group of young people in front of you, what would you tell them?

SPEAKER_04 1:06:14

It's okay to reach out, you need help. You know, it's okay. We have this society that says, you know, I mean, fentanyl, it's, you know, there's people like, oh, he died of a drug overdose. You know, and there's such a negative connotation about that. You know, and but you got a a young person, I would say, you're just not alone in these, in these, these struggles or these temptations that you have. You're not alone. You don't have to feel like you're abnormal. Okay. It's so it's okay to talk about it. There's there's no judgment. You know, I would never judge anyone who says I struggle with something, and I don't care what it is, it doesn't have to be drugs or alcohol or whatever. It can be anything. There's no judgment. And I think sometimes as a young person, you feel like you feel ashamed. You feel like I'm going to be judged because you know I have this issue, or I struggle with something, or I did something stupid. All of those things are perfectly normal. We all have, there's no such thing as a perfect marriage. There's no such thing as a perfect life. You might, we all sort of try to pretend that it is. And so I think that we do our young people a little disservice, like trying to show our best side.

unknown 1:07:46

Right.

SPEAKER_04 1:07:46

But I think I think I would tell people it's okay to to to be vulnerable and say, hey, I'm struggling with this. I need some help. It's okay to not be perfect. You'll be surprised at how many people will come to help, and you'll feel so much better about it. Like, hey, I'm not alone.

SPEAKER_03 1:08:01

Absolutely. Scott, thank you very much. I appreciate your time. I appreciate your insight. Keep up the good work.

SPEAKER_04 1:08:13

I always enjoy talking to you, Larry. I'm glad to good luck in your in your your endeavor here. I admire it. You know, I love it that you're doing it. So I'm glad to be part of it.

SPEAKER_03 1:08:24

Thank you very much. Stay tuned in and until next time. Thank you very much, Scott. Thank you. The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are those of the guests and do not necessarily reflect the views of the people I know or its host. This podcast is for entertainment and informational purposes only.