CCS California, with four locations in L.A., San Diego, San Jose and Orange County, continues its growth trend by adding two new A/V experts to its education and corporate teams.

Nicole Gordon joined the L.A. sales team as an Education Consultant.  She serves as a trainer helping to reach out to educators about SMART products.  Nicole holds a master’s in education from USC and has spent several years as an in-classroom teacher.  She is able to relate to the needs of teachers and help them understand the value of using A/V technology in their classrooms. 

Mike Jarchow will join CCS as an Account Executive in San Jose starting September 7th.  Mike has tremendous experience working with corporate and higher education customers, selling video-conferencing gear along with A/V integration services.  His early background is in telecommunications and he holds a Cisco Certification.  Mike is especially knowledgeable about enterprise system connectivity and what’s needed to make different systems work together. 

By Brian MacGee, CCS Kansas City

When you take a look at the big picture, audio visual systems can have a major impact on company sustainability.  Most companies don’t realize that A/V solutions can play an important role in reducing an organization’s carbon footprint.  For example:

•    Business Conferencing:  Instead of spending funds on flying employees and partners across the country for meetings, simply have a video conferencing system installed.  Not only will you save money on airfare, car rental and lodging expenses, you will reduce downtime and increase productivity for you project teams, not to mention reducing carbon emission related to travel. 

•    SMART Boards™:  Educators can help save trees and dollars spent on supplies for classroom instruction by using interactive SMART Boards and student remote response systems instead of using paper handouts.

•    Automated Power Systems:  A/V integrators can help organizations be more energy-efficient by using environmental control systems with auto programmable settings to turn off equipment when not in use.  Some manufacturers, such as Crestron have complete building systems that allow for equipment management and commercial lighting control.  In fact, one school district saved more than $250,000 in energy costs by simply powering down projectors and other associated A/V gear.

Is your company proactive in this area?  Assess its green initiatives and call an A/V integrator to help you improve.  The environment and your business will thank you.

CCS Kansas City recently completed an audio visual installation at the Blue Valley Unified School District worth more than $100,000. 

CCS was asked to create a standard for control in four of their district board rooms.  Using Crestron, Panasonic and SMART board equipment, CCS installed standard control systems with roomview remote management software.

Blue Valley also had a need for a video and audio solution for use in their some of their high schools’ common areas. 
•    Blue Valley Southwest High School – Created digital, high resolution 2x2 video walls using NEC and Crestron equipment.

•    Blue Valley Northwest High School – Installed Epson 8050Z and Crestron equipment with roomview remote management software and a Da-Lite fixed frame screen.

•    Blue Valley Center for Advanced Professional Studies – Installed dual Epson 8050Z’s and dual Da-Lite Contour Electrol screens, all of which is hidden in the drop tile ceiling.  Also implanted Crestron control system with roomview remote management software and Electro-Voice ZX1-i100w speakers

These common areas will be utilized for large group presentations for the district, as well as multiple community functions.  All this digital design helps to “future proof” the Blue Valley District. 

As you may have read earlier this year on our blog, CCS offered its second annual “Design Your Ideal Classroom” technology grant – a great opportunity for Arizona K-12 educators to win a technology infused classroom and training worth thousands of dollars.

CCS just announced the grant winner for the 2010-2011 school year – Kristina Manning from the Arizona School for the Deaf.

The technology she’ll be receiving – valued at about $15,000 – will significantly improve the learning process for the students and allow her to cover topics in greater depth.  Currently the students miss out on a lot of instructional time.  This is because nearly 50 percent of classroom time is spent on students leaving their seats to answer questions in American Sign Language and then scanning for visual clues from classmates to see who the next respondent will be.

List of technology she’ll be receiving:
•    1 Widescreen SMART Board Interactive Whiteboard
•    1 NEC 40” Large Format LCD Display
•    1 EPSON 450W Ultra Short-throw Projector
•    1 eInstruction 32-pad CPS Pulse student response system
•    1 eInstruction Mobi wireless slate system – 1 teacher and 2 students
•    1 AverMedia CP155 document camera
•    1 EPSON GT-500 Workforce Scanner
•    4 RM Education TTS Tuff Cams
•    1 Ergotron TeachWell Media cart

These new audio and visual tools are expected to make it possible to have 100 percent student participation without orchestrating visual turn-taking around the classroom. 

Kristina Manning's winning application was complete with letters of support from her first and second grade students:

The CCS Founder and CEO was featured on the cover of the July issue of Scottsdale Airpark News.  The story gives some great tips on how small businesses that don’t want to spend a lot of money can still take advantage of audio visual technology: Click here to see the article.  



More news from the Scottsdale Headquarters:
•    eSchool News showcases how one teacher that was chosen to receive a technology grant from CCS helped inspire the entire school to make teaching more interactive: Click here to read more. 

•    T.H.E. Journal shows how a 21st Century Classroom can boost students’ academic achievement: Read about it here. 

•    Sound & Video Contractor reporter talks about CCS at InfoComm 2010: Click here to see the story.

Also, CCS Texas has been in the news lately regarding their new McAllen office.
•    Houston Business Journal: Click here to read more.