25th Anniversary Q+A: John Shaferly

Ivan Gwynn of Serenity Studios sat down with John Shaferly to discuss his experience before and during his 20 years (and counting!) at Delta, as well as changes in the industry and what excites him about the future.

Getting Started in the Industry & Joining Delta AV

Ivan: What inspired you to pursue a career in the AV industry?

John: Audio was my hobby. As a kid I enjoyed building speaker systems and buying the speaker drivers wherever I could find them, flea markets, garage sales, online catalogs, and then building the cabinets. I had a dream of someday building really great speakers, then to find out that’s a lot harder than it seems. I actually built my first set of speakers with my brother and we officially formed a company called Shaferly Audio Systems and we took our speakers to a local retailer. He critiqued them up and down and gave us a lot of feedback, and then sometime later ended up giving me a job. So if nothing else came out of it, I got the job out of it.

So that was my entry into the audio visual world. Then in the nineties I worked for a high-end home audio company that was also doing smart homes. This was in Ohio, and that’s where I got exposed to control system programming from a residential perspective. Shortly after that, I moved from Ohio out here to Oregon, and looked up AV companies, mostly through their websites, which were sort of a new thing back then. And Delta AV had a pretty nice, polished website. I could tell from the website that they were involved in some innovative projects and more technologically advanced than some of the other companies in the area. I definitely came out to Oregon with the hope of working for Delta AV, so I applied shortly after coming out here.

Ivan: How long have you been with Delta AV?

John: I started in October of 2000. So October will be my 21st anniversary.

Ivan: Congrats! That’s a pretty big deal.

John: Yeah. It’s gone by quickly and it’s hard to believe actually that I’ve been here for that long. And I look at pictures of all of us from 20 years ago and think, “Wow, we’re getting old!”

Ivan: Who was around when you started and what did it look like back then?

John: So Mark, Bob, and Steve were the three owners, and Jeff Overbo was a fairly new hire at that point. Spencer Rankin, he was in college and he was doing summers at Delta AV, working in the warehouse and out in the field a little bit. Jennifer Fryer, she was Jennifer Roche at that time, and she was the comptroller. Ben Roche of course, he was one of the first hires as well. So those are kind of the original people. Then people were added and we grew pretty quickly in those first 10 years or so.

Ivan: Thinking back on your 20 years at Delta, what are some of your biggest accomplishments, what are you most proud of?

John: I was hired on as a control system programmer, and at that point, the platform that we were working with, AMX, was really the predominant control system platform in the commercial market. I spent quite a bit of time early on developing a modular approach to programming that worked for the way we did our systems. That work has carried us quite a ways and we still use those modules today, and we still use that approach. I feel like it’s made us more efficient in our programming efforts and then we’re able to focus more on additional features that we can do in programming. So that’s been pretty cool and I feel like we’ve gotten a lot of mileage out of that.

Trust + Team

Ivan: Do you have any memories or stories come up that make you laugh?

John: I remember when I first got hired and in my first week or two, I was diligently tracking all of my hours and what I had been working on. It came time for the first paycheck and I was waiting for somebody to ask for my hours and nobody ever did, but I got a paycheck. Then the next two weeks, I still kept track of my hours, and was still waiting for somebody to ask for my hours and nobody ever did. And I got another paycheck. So I think I finally went to Jen and said, “Do you need my hours?” And she said, “Oh no, we don’t really keep track of that.”

I look at it now, and with all of our intricate job costs we do, which is necessary for a larger company, and think how funny it is and how much has changed since those days. The thing that I always appreciated about Delta, and which is sort of encapsulated in that story, is that there was just a tremendous amount of trust that was given to me as an employee. Mark’s approach was, “You’re hired to do a job, and as long as that job is getting done, we’re happy.” I appreciated that trust that was forwarded to me. That’s been an overarching theme of the company, and people respond well to that.

Ivan: What gets you to work every day? What gets you excited about the work that you do?

John: I love being a part of the company, I love being part of the team, and what we are doing. Ultimately, I think what brings me to work is what we are producing for our clients, trying to produce excellent AV systems. But beyond that, it’s being part of the team. I have people who are relying on the work that I’m doing within our company, and in order for them to do their job well, I need to do my job. I like to help people and I get lots of opportunities to assist people in technical ways throughout my day. And that brings a lot of satisfaction to me in the job that I do.

Ivan: Was there a moment at Delta where you felt like you overcame a hurdle and grew as a result? “

John: My experience prior to Delta AV was in residential with a certain manufacturer, AMX. So when I moved to Oregon, I sought out AMX dealers. I found Delta AV and eventually was able to get hired. When I started, I realized that AMX commercial was not the same as AMX residential. It was a totally different platform, totally different programming language, that I didn’t know. So I spent my first couple of weeks reading the programming language guide, learning how to program, hoping that Mark, Bob, and Steve wouldn’t catch on that I didn’t know how to program the system that we were installing. I think they did catch on, but they were patient and allowed me time to learn. Within a few weeks, I was able to pick it up and start running with it. That was a pretty big hurdle, and one that I’ve looked back on and laughed about quite a bit.

Ivan: They didn’t give you too hard of a time, then?

John: They didn’t give me too hard of a time. I’m sure at some point they may have said, “I’m not sure he knows how to program this stuff,” but they kept me on anyways, which I’m grateful for.

Company Growth & The Future

Ivan: Did you imagine Delta AV would become what it is today? Has anything surprised you along the way?

John: When I started, I think there may have been either 11 or 15 of us. I can’t remember the exact number. I couldn’t have fathomed back then what we would look like now. The projects we do now, we definitely would not have been able to do 15 years ago, or even 10 years ago. That’s been pretty cool to see that growth as a company.

Ivan: How do you think the industry has changed in 25 years?

John: It’s a rapidly changing industry. I’d say the biggest changes have been the AV and IT world beginning to merge together. And I see that merge continuing, AV people are having to become much more well-versed and knowledgeable in IT. And conversely, IT people are becoming much more knowledgeable in AV. And those roles overlap a lot. I think it will be interesting to see what the future holds. I think it’s very possible that AV could even absorb certain parts of IT and the management of it, because of the complexity that AV has and the demand that it places on the network. I see a lot more happening in the future in that regard.

So to me that is pretty exciting. Moving beyond, “Okay, we’re just going to work within a building and put some AV in a building,” to, “Hey, we’re going to take AV systems all over the world and link them together and have a way to manage them, to provide real time help to the people that are actually in the rooms.” That’s pretty cool stuff that I find pretty exciting.

Ivan: What else is in store for the next 25 years?

John: I think it’s going to be very interesting to see where the future leads us. There’s definitely a lot of unknown there, a lot of surprises that can happen along the way, but I think it will be pretty cool to see us at Delta AV becoming more involved, partnering more with our clients on a larger basis. We love to serve the northwest and our clients that are here, and I don’t think that’s going to ever change.

And we also look forward to expanding and helping clients in a larger region too. Whether it be nationwide or even global, being able to basically offer them pre-engineered solutions and the ability to support it after it’s been installed, regardless of whether they are in the northwest, across the US, or anywhere in the world. That’s where I see some opportunities for excitement and growth in that way.