Thomas Smith

Project Manager / Consultant, Avict Projects Ltd
Douglas Hoag

Pincipal Consultant, DCH Technology Consulting

I’m Douglas Hoag, Principal Consultant and owner of DCH Technology Consulting, based in Chicago, IL. With more than 15 years in the audiovisual industry, I specialize in consulting, design, and owner’s representative services for complex built environments. My work spans courtrooms, council chambers, emergency operations centers, police stations, and corporate experience spaces, where technology must seamlessly support both in-person and hybrid collaboration. At DCH Technology Consulting, I take a human-centered design approach—balancing AVIXA, SMPTE, AES, ANSI, and AIA best practices with real-world workflows. My background includes global technology standardization efforts with Fortune 500 clients as well as civic projects requiring coordination between state and county stakeholders. I focus on creating cohesive, intuitive systems that support transparency, equitable conferencing, and future-ready infrastructure through solutions like AVoverIP, broadcast integration, and smart workflow design. I’m passionate about helping architects, owners, and technology teams bring their vision to life with audiovisual systems that feel intentional, intuitive, and built to last.
Christopher Kusek

Senior AV Designer, Professional Audio Designs

Gracie Chiu

Account Manager - Asia, AVIXA

Jim Spencer

Audio Video Network Design Professional, University of Notre Dame

Jesse Anderson

Associate Director of AV Architecture, Tufts University

Jesse Anderson is the Associate Director AV Architecture at Tufts University, leading the team responsible audiovisual installations and service delivery throughout the University system. Jesse has been in Pro AV for over 40 years, and in that time has done front of house engineering, 35mm motion picture projection, multi-image slide shows, audio and video editing, arena and stadium sound design, and group/team management.  For the past 15 years, he has held positions as an AV Director in Higher Education and has great experience in designing and installing AV systems that ensure that pedagogical intents are met.  Jesse is a past chair of AVIXA’s Technology Managers Council, is a member of the Standards Steering Committee, has been a task group member on several standards, has been a mentor for the Woman’s Council, and has volunteered as a Subject Matter Expert for various AVIXA iniatives.
Bill Larsen, CTS

District AV Technology Coordinator, Independent School District 197

Managed Audio Visual services for School District 197 that includes Two Rivers High School, two (2) middle schools, and five (5) elementary schools. Provide leadership and management to the Audio Visual department. CareHawk system administrator for the two middle schools. Started a service club for Two Rivers High School and District called Tech Warriors. Tech Warriors provided level 1 computer support, event production services, and TV/Streaming production.
Christopher Vann

Training Manager, Barco

Christopher Dechter, CTS-D, CTS-I

Manager, Instructional Technology, University of Wyoming

Ben Thomas

Head of Pro AV, Sr. Director of Publishing, MarketScale

Ben currently serves as the Head of Pro AV and the Sr. Director of Publishing for MarketScale, a B2B publisher and strategic marketing firm. He has over a decade of award winning experience in media publishing for large scale events, OTT & live streaming platforms, marketing, network television, and podcasting. Ben decided on his career path at the age of 7, and to date has led some of the most influential brands in the world including Intel, Nokia, Samsung and Segway, to billions of content interactions. A huge hockey fan (Go Stars!), and former contestant and current fan of Family Feud, Thomas resides in Dallas, Texas.