Connell Smallwood, CTS
UI/UX Control System Programmer
Background: I majored in electrical engineering at North Carolina A&T State University, but I had no idea the A/V world existed! I stumbled onto Extron after graduating, and I was an Applications Engineer there. It was my first introduction to commercial A/V. I spent 8 years with Extron, working at the manufacturer level and always in contact with a lot of integrators. KONTEK is an Extron customer, and I did things like troubleshooting, system design work, providing training, etc. That’s where it all started for me with KONTEK.
As I become more senior at Extron, I had more opportunities to work in the field — to actually get to see and touch and feel these products. Not just bench testing. I grew to appreciate those moments. It definitely takes your learning to the next level when you’re in the field seeing things first-hand. I realized I wanted to expand my knowledge of the industry and make the move to the integrator side. That’s how I wanted to continue my education and specialization. You might think I was crazy to move from a large manufacturer to an integrator, but KONTEK was highly spoken of at Extron. People were happy for me when I got this job.
Talents: Troubleshooting — it’s probably the biggest thing for a control engineer. You have to know every piece of the system, because the control system talks to every piece of the system. I enjoy troubleshooting code and programming, but also troubleshooting hardware — and I think I’m pretty good at it.
“Every day we’re handed a drawing on paper and we have to convert that into how the end-user is going to interact with the system. We take those complex systems and make them easy and usable in real life.”
Certifications: I am certified across a range of manufacturers, including Extron (Extron Authorized Programmer), Crestron, TesiraFORTÉ, QSC Q-SYS Training, and Zoom.
Challenges: Every day we’re handed a drawing on paper and we have to convert that into how the end-user is going to interact with the system. It’s one thing to transfer our client’s wants and needs onto a drawing, but it’s another thing again to encode those ideas into a system for the user to touch and control through a button panel or a full-blown touch panel. We take those complex systems and make them easy and usable in real life.
Professional Goals: I always want to remain technical, of course, and to contribute on the system design side. But my real goal is to become more familiar with the business side of KONTEK and commercial A/V and integration.
KONTEK Facts: Everybody knows I love to sneak out at lunch for a mid-day workout.
On Programming as a Service: I’m excited about it. I think it gives us the opportunity to provide a service, our programming expertise, to others in the industry without them having to use our whole suite of offerings. Me and Jeff [Howard] have a unique set of skills based on our backgrounds, with me coming from the manufacturer’s side and then coming into integration. I see how things work between the two. It’s cool to be able to offer just my programming skills, instead of being tucked away in the whole shebang. It expands our reach — and that’s a good thing. With this, our work could even scale up to be global.
“I created a new control standard template for NCCU. Now, everything is using this one look and feel and design and operations. Now that everything is standardized, what they see and how they interact with the system can become familiar. I took what they were working with before and brought it up to 2020 standards. That was one of the first projects I work on, and it’s what they still use. This is the value of what we can do for them.”
“Then there is The Variable. It was more of a modern office deployment, with multiple conference rooms and that stadium space. I enjoyed that because of the challenge of working with a marketing firm – we had to make sure our design met their needs and aesthetics.”