On this week’s podcast, Larry Dashiell joins us from Santa Rosa, CA, where he is owner and CEO of Summit Technology Group, a team of more than 60 professionals who provide smart home technology, electrical, and renewable energy solutions across California’s North Bay and the North Idaho area.

Back in 1986, our guest today was thrust into a leadership role in his father’s electrical company at the young age of 22. Since then, he has built a stellar reputation for bringing together a “total solution” of electrical contracting, lighting design, and integration of sophisticated audio, video, and renewable energy system management under the same roof.

In this episode, we discuss Larry’s unique perspective as a 38-year industry veteran of both the electrical and low-voltage electronics trades, in particular his insights into lighting and renewable energy management business opportunities for the custom integration channel.

On this week’s podcast, John Palser joins us from Omaha, NE, where he is president of Denizen, a custom integration company with locations in Omaha, Kansas City, Dallas, and Austin. From a complete home that you can walk through in their HQ Experience Center in Omaha to regional domination across 14 states from north to south in the middle of the country, Denizen is re-defining what transformative technology can do in a home.

During the recent HTSA Fall Conference outside of Denver, John got stuck talking to Jeremy at the closing night dinner. John was very patient with Jeremy’s 50 questions about this business and career history, which proved to be an excellent pre-interview for this podcast, minus maybe a few celebrity athlete client anecdotes which we won’t be able to share here unfortunately.

On this week’s podcast, Josh Willits joins us from Mechanicsburg, PA, where he is COO of Portal, the proposal software and product/pricing database for integrators. Although you’ve seen him wearing the Portal orange pants at trade shows going on 11 years now, Josh’s career has also included a tenure in the custom integration trade, as well as several years with a well-respected Crestron programming company. You may even remember his Covid-era side hustle as a gentleman coffee roaster.

Today we’ll touch on a bit of that career arc, but mostly we’ll focus on Portal’s latest innovation: the AI Proposal Builder. Released in beta to the industry on November 12, the new tool promises AV and security dealers the ability to create complete project proposals in just seconds, transforming often-tedious process and making it easier for integrators to sell projects and get paid.