For Gene Zimmerman, a lifelong career in broadcast engineering started on a farm in northern Illinois, with a broken radio and a curious kid.
“I took the tubes out, walked them down to the gas station to test them, and came back with three new ones," he recalled. "The radio worked. I looked at that sucker, going, how does this work?"
That simple moment sparked a lifelong fascination that's still with Zimmerman today. By high school, his teachers found it hard to challenge him, so he trained on the same systems the military used on tubes and transistors and learned to fix TVs at the vocational center. “After that, they didn’t know what to do with me," he said, "so I helped them build a new TV studio.”
His first job after college was as a design engineer at Odetics Broadcast, where he developed automated tape and master control systems. Simultaneously, he was consulting for National Teleconsultants, working on major projects for Warner Brothers and Fox, and immersing himself in the engineering community by joining organizations such as SMPTE, STE, AES, SBE, and SCTE. This opened doors for him to work on the 1996 Olympics, which later led to his involvement in the 2000 and 2002 games.
After the 1996 Olympics, Zimmerman was asked by his former employer to help Fox News for a couple of days, which turned into a three-year engineering role during its formative years. But these experiences and milestones were just the lead-up to his biggest career achievement.
When production shifted from analog to digital, Zimmerman noticed a crucial gap. “Every camera had a monitor," he explained. "There were no multiviewers. Trucks were changing to SDI and needed an affordable way to convert digital to analog for their monitors.”
At the time, the solution was replacing every monitor, each costing $4,000 to $5,000. With 340 monitors in a truck, that could cost $ 1.5 million.
NEP Group wanted to see if Zimmerman could create something better; he proved he could, and they liked it, which led to Zimmerman founding Cobalt Digital, where he now serves as president and CEO. “I was surprised when the first order came in for 1,400 units. That’s really what launched Cobalt, solving customer problems," he said.
Since then, Cobalt has become essential across trucks, networks, and streaming platforms. Zimmerman describes Cobalt as “a very advanced Swiss Army knife.” The company has garnered widespread industry acclaim, including an Emmy, in addition to what Zimmerman has personally won, which includes two Emmys from his work on the Olympics.
Zimmerman champions open standards—Cobalt strongly supports them and believes customers should have options. This approach led to the creation of openGear, developed with Ross Video, which has become the industry standard for modular signal processing. This same philosophy also guided Cobalt’s involvement in IPMX for AV over IP and RIST for reliable internet transport.
As the industry moves more toward IP and open interoperability, Zimmerman sees only opportunity. “The future of the AV industry is incredible," he said. "IP brings total flexibility, as long as we stay committed to open standards. That’s where we want to be.”
