Sometimes you've got to stop and smell the flowers.

This column is almost exclusively dedicated to ProAV industry issues. Technical, process or procedural oriented, AV Insider is a column that explores the ins and outs of the systems integration issues facing people in the trenches - people using, installing and setting-up the gear.

But, every once in a while, something comes to light that's unrelated to the PROAV technology, per se, and more related to the people. So, I cover it.

And, this one's different.

In April, the National Conference for Community and Justice (NCCJ) handed out its 53rd annual Humanitarians of the Year awards. Founded in 1927 originally as the National Conference of Christians and Jews, NCCJ is a national non-profit, non-sectarian human relations organization dedicated to fighting bias, bigotry and racism in America.

Each year, NCCJ provides it's nationally recognized, pioneering human relations programs to thousands of youth and adults (mostly in California).

Past winners of the NCCJ humanitarian award are people like Richard Riordan (Los Angeles' Mayor), John Van de Kamp, Walter O'Malley and John Northrop.

Well, this year, NCCJ honored Kris and Jane Popovich.

Although Popovich is probably not a name that our industry knows well, Kris is the owner of Hoffman Video and Hoffman Media Systems in Southern California. Popovich acquired Hoffman Media, known as one of the industry's premiere Command and Control Center integration firms, in 1978. And, although I have never personally met Kris, I became familiar with Hoffman while a friend of mine, Randy Pagnan, was running their ProAV systems integration group, I am familiar with his philanthropy through one of his projects at USC. He donated a building to the campus.

I became aware of the award through a mutual friend of Randy and mine: Jay Hitz.

So, congratulations to Kris and Jane!!!

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Gary Kayye is Chief Visionary of Kayye Consulting - a firm that specializes in providing marketing consulting and training development to the professional audiovisual industry. He spent 12 years at Extron and AMX as VP of Sales and Marketing before founding his own firm. He can be reached at www.kayye.com or via e-mail at gkayye@kayye.com.

 

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