What does the future of Pro AV hold? A good indicator is The Nine. Every year, SCN celebrates a select group of younger professionals who are setting the tone for the industry’s next generation. This year, we shine the spotlight on leaders making a difference in engineering, product development and marketing, business development and sales, service, training, virtual production, and operations.
Cory Allen
Title: Vice President of Services
Company: Exertis Almo
Location: Cincinnati, OH
Overtime: He loves playing hockey, working on cars, watching Formula racing, and savoring a good cigar. But above all, he cherishes spending time with his wife and daughter. He also swam with sharks miles out in the open ocean off the coast of Oahu.
Why You Need to Know Him: Driven and ambitious, Cory Allen is not comfortable just standing still and never settles for good enough. He always strives to push through, no matter what’s in the way, and constantly looks for ways to level up and adjust his approach. “Roadblocks don’t throw me off—they’re just the next challenge to figure out,” he added.
Travis Cawthorne
Title: Director of Product and Training
Company: Kramer
Location: Charlotte, NC
Overtime: He loves smoking meats and takes great pride in preparing brisket, ribs, or pulled pork for family and friends. “They say once you hit your thirties, most guys have to decide whether they’re going to get into smoking meat or World War history," he explained. "I chose to smoke meat.”
Why You Need to Know Him: Travis Cawthrone is deeply passionate about education, training, and product development, which are his primary focuses in his current role. As he advances in his career, he hopes to continue bridging the gap between technology and real-world user needs, ensuring that AV solutions remain intuitive, powerful, and effective.
Holly Clausen
Title: Senior Design Engineer
Company: AVI-SPL
Location: Seattle, WA
Overtime: She spent significant time collaging during the pandemic, and creating art has become a source of stress relief for her. She has also dedicated more time to running and recently trained for and completed her first half marathon.
Why You Need to Know Her: As a senior design engineer at AVI-SPL within its Product and Solutions Group (PSG), Holly Clausen is responsible for creating and managing all AVI-SPL reference designs. However, she notes that a large team collaborates to bring these designs to life.
Daniel Gish
Title: Electrical Engineer
Company: HME
Location: San Diego
Overtime: He is an avid reader, photographer, and trail runner enjoying the beautiful views of his hometown San Diego.
Why You Need to Know Him: Gish knows the ins and outs of audio, a knowledge that began with a childhood of audio curiosity.
Catherine Koutsaris
Title: Product Marketing Manager
Company: Matrox Video
Location: Montreal
Overtime: A dual citizen of Canada and the United States, she grew up in Montreal and embraces the area’s multi-cultural offerings. You can find Catherine trying new recipes, watching musicals, playing video games, or admiring her salt and pepper shaker and rubber duck collections.
Why You Need to Know Her: Always in style, she loves finding new ways of combining her engineering background with market knowledge to present innovative solutions for her clients' complex control room environments.
Learn more about Catherine here.
Xzavia Killikelly
Title: Business Development Manager, The Americas
Company: Bose Professional
Location: Houston, TX
Overtime: He has a fascination with words, rhyming, and the artistry of hip-hop. He even recorded a couple of tracks in a studio. “Even though the hip-hop career never took off, I still, to this day, have a deep love for the genre, but now I engage with music in a different way, one that’s just as exciting and meaningful,” he said.
Why You Need to Know Him: Xzavia Killikelly is continually discovering ways to harness the impact technology has on people and experiences, assisting individuals in connecting, engaging, and innovating with it. “The mix of creativity, technology, and problem solving makes every project unique,” he said.
Andie Mace
Title: Senior Product Marketing Manager
Company: HP
Location: Salt Lake City
Overtime: This newlywed loves hiking, skiing, and being outdoors in general.
Why You Need to Know Her: Andie Mace self-identifies as a geek. She grew up in a tech household in Fort Worth, TX. “We just loved gadgets,” she admitted.
Tom Petershack
Title: General Manager-Media and Special Projects
Company: Planar
Location: Milwaukee, WI
Overtime: As a dad to a 10-month-old, there isn’t a lot of free time, but Petershack enjoys chess and golfing.
Why You Need to Know Him: He doesn’t like taking “no” or “we can’t do this” for an answer.
Melis Vardar
Title: Manager, AV/IT Operations
Company: UCLA
Location: Los Angeles
Overtime: Vardar doesn’t just work in education, she's engulfed by it. She’s passionate about learning and is currently going for her master's degree.
Why You Need to Know Her: Basically, Vardar is what you get when you mix a bookworm who loves to learn with a whole bunch of Pro AV gadgets and solutions.
