After developing his skills with a steadily growing base of local sound companies, as well as supporting area manufacturers like EV and Crown in various endeavors, Ken decided to take the plunge. With a full-time staff of one (himself), TPC officially entered the fray in 1996, with three highly supportive, pro audio-savvy (and largely silent) partners later helping support growth. Primary market focuses included system design and install and live sound, the latter particularly busy in the summer months at festival time. Both remain core business segments to this day.

Our region, called "Michiana" due to its combo of Indiana and Michigan counties, centers around South Bend, Indiana. A reasonable population guestimate for "metro" Michiana is 350,000. There's a heavy concentration of churches, and several of the local school districts are progressive. It's these two entities that have formed the lion's share of TPC's contracting work, the company's largest percentage of business.

Chris at his workstation.

"Quite frankly, one of the biggest boosts to becoming a full-time company was the sheer amount of bad systems work being done in the area," Kuespert says. "I don't say this lightly, because you kind of wish it wasn't the case. It's ultimately not good for any of us in this line of work. There was also a lack of attention paid to educating the customer, to guiding them through the process of wise decision-making with regard to systems, and then a lack of follow-through to make sure they were satisfied."

A full-time installation foreman eventually signed on, as did another "partner" who certainly bears mention: Ken's wife, Pam, who previously served as A/V director for the College Football Hall of Fame in South Bend. (Nothing like keeping it in the family!)

Other full- and part-time crew positions followed, and most recently, TPC has added Kevin Pepperall as production specialist and Chris Ross as A/V specialist, two veterans offering exceptional technical backgrounds.

The company focuses on all aspects of an installation project, in Ken's words, "everything electronic." Voice wiring, data phone systems, full integration of video, sound, lighting, data - whatever is appropriate to the particulars of the project.

"We work hard at being very good at integrating all systems together," he notes. "Everything is so interwoven anyway at this point, especially sound, video and lighting, that it's kind of a blur and you're really doing a disservice to the customer if you don't know how it can be efficiently interconnected."

A recent TPC project at Lakeland Community Hospital in St. Joseph, MI, included six meeting rooms in a "pod" formation and separated by moving divider walls. All system elements are linked to an AMX master control system, with each room outfitted with a tailored touch panel for selecting the desired lights, sound, video source and devices. Sensors tied into the system handle automatic room (and system) combining. No professionally trained operators are needed for optimum performance, no matter the configuration.

Kevin and Pam hard at work.

Churches still present some of the most notable challenges. "You really need to focus on education first, before trying to make any sort of a pitch, because church boards are often, and understandably, technical novices," Ken says. "Right away, we often get asked to put together a price, without even discussing the system!