Todd Johnson has watched people build careers in AV from a lot of different starting points. His own path took him from working as an integrator to becoming a manufacturer’s representative and eventually Western Regional Sales Manager for Symetrix.
That ability to find a place in the industry, learn, and move into new roles is part of what Johnson believes AV needs to preserve for the next generation.
As a sponsor of the HETMA Golf Classic supporting the PRISM Scholarship, Symetrix sees investing in new professionals as part of sustaining an industry that Johnson describes much like a family.
“We really kind of feel like AV is a family, and we need to nurture a lot of these types of opportunities.”
The need is becoming increasingly visible as experienced professionals begin thinking about retirement and the industry considers who will eventually take their places.
For Johnson, the answer starts with giving younger professionals reasons to become interested in AV and opportunities to develop once they get here.
Building Skills and Career Paths
One advantage of AV is that there is rarely only one path forward.
Johnson started on the integration side, moved into the manufacturer’s representative world, and eventually joined a manufacturer. Others might begin in live production, campus technology, IT, programming, sales, or another part of the industry and find their careers moving in entirely different directions.
That mobility makes training especially important.
Symetrix maintains a collection of online training courses covering its platforms and broader system concepts, along with an extensive library of product training and technical videos. Its Composer learning path includes introductory training as well as more advanced certification in open-architecture AV design. The company also offers webinars and on-demand learning covering system design, programming, monitoring, management, and other topics.
Those resources give existing AV professionals opportunities to expand their skills, but they can also lower the barrier for someone who is still learning the industry.
That becomes increasingly important as AV systems overlap with networking, software, control, security, and traditional IT. The people entering the profession need ways to experiment and learn without feeling as though they need to understand every part of the system before they can begin.
Making the Technology More Approachable
Johnson sees product design itself as another opportunity to make AV more accessible.
Symetrix introduced its Cognio platform in 2026 after more than four years of development. Instead of relying on a traditional centralized processing model, Cognio distributes processing across devices and combines audio, video, and control within a software-driven platform.
For Johnson, one of the important pieces is making the programming environment powerful without making it unnecessarily intimidating.
“We’re making it so you don’t have to have a computer science degree to program it. It’s very programmable, but very user-friendly programming.”
That philosophy can matter when thinking about the industry’s next generation.
Complexity will always be part of professional AV, and there will always be room for people who want to dive deeply into programming and engineering. But complexity does not necessarily need to be the price of admission.
Cognio’s DesignOps software uses code-free control creation, reusable design elements, automatic routing, and offline emulation that allows users to design and test system functionality without being connected to hardware. Symetrix has paired the platform with a Cognio DesignOps Essentials course focused on designing, configuring, and validating systems using those workflows. The course also provides AVIXA Renewal Units.
Giving someone the ability to start building, experimenting, and seeing results can help turn curiosity into confidence.
Keeping the Passion Alive
Johnson also raised a less technical challenge: keeping people excited about AV in the first place.
Technology is everywhere now. Displays, streaming audio, video calls, wireless connectivity, and digital experiences have become so normal that the technology behind them can almost disappear.
That is usually exactly what AV professionals want.
Johnson, who also works as a front-of-house engineer for bands, compared it to running live sound. When everything works perfectly, few people think about the person behind the system. When something fails, everyone notices.
The same is often true in a classroom, conference room, or campus event space.
Successful AV can be nearly invisible, but there is an enormous amount of skill behind making that experience feel simple.
Helping younger professionals see that work, and giving them opportunities to participate in it, can help rebuild some of the excitement Johnson worries the industry could lose.
Making Room for Who Comes Next
That brings the conversation back to the PRISM Scholarship and why Symetrix chose to support the HETMA Golf Classic.
Scholarships alone cannot solve the challenge of developing the industry’s future workforce. Neither can training, mentorship, easier-to-learn technology, or a single entry-level opportunity.
Together, however, they create more ways for someone to get started and more reasons for them to stay.
Johnson’s own career is an example of how many directions AV can take someone once they find their way into it. The challenge now is making sure another generation gets that same opportunity.
There will always be classrooms, performance spaces, meeting rooms, and other environments where people need to see, hear, communicate, and collaborate. Someone will have to design, build, program, manage, and support the technology that makes those experiences possible.
The industry’s job is to make sure there are people excited and prepared to take those places when the time comes.
