Higher-Ed AV Pioneer, Mike Pedersen, Honored As Hero By CTI

ST. LOUIS, Feb. 24, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- College graduation is the pinnacle of every young person's educational career. It's one big joyous celebration of a university's mission and student dreams.

Imagine, however, that you're in charge of a small AV team, and the president of your university announces that commencement will be virtual this year because of COVID. That's what happened to Mike Pedersen, the audiovisual experience manager at Iowa State University in April 2020.

Conference Technologies, Inc.® (CTI), a leading custom audio-visual systems integration solutions specialist, announced today that it is recognizing Pedersen as part of a "Heroes" campaign that honors outstanding people in the AV industry.

Pederson's team, in tandem with other university departments, had less than four weeks to pull off something that had never been done before. In keeping with pandemic protocols, "We filmed each of the presenters individually," Pedersen recalls. "So after the president gave her speech to an empty auditorium we had her look to her left and introduce the provost. Then we brought him in while looking to his right, as if she was still on stage. It was all done piecemeal and then edited to look as realistic as possible."

The editing included adding such traditional touches as the president officially conferring degrees, the recognition of students graduating with distinction, and the playing of the school's alma mater The Bells of Iowa State – all for a virtual audience that numbered in the thousands around the world.

It was one more noteworthy achievement in a career that actually began with his (non-virtual) graduation from Iowa State in 1994 with a degree in mechanical engineering. This Cyclone had come full circle.

Pedersen pioneered the concept of the "in-house integrator" in Higher-Education AV. In fact, he arguably coined the term. Universities used to routinely farm out their AV needs. But Pedersen proved that in-house integrators have the same capabilities and skill sets as outside integrators and can do the job more efficiently and economically.

Pedersen is one of only about 500 people in the world to have Certified Technology Specialist certifications in Design (CTS-D) and Installation (CTS-I). He was named CTS Holder of the Year in 2018 and is a founding member of the Higher Education Technology Managers Alliance (HETMA), an advocacy organization dedicated to raising awareness of tech issues unique to his vertical.

Pedersen worked for 19 years at Mechdyne, which built Cave Automatic Virtual Environments – room-sized systems that provided a fully immersive VR experience. He later assisted in the engineering of a CAVE system for the King Abdullah University of Science and Technology in Saudi Arabia and the creation of a real-time video processing system for the Morrison Planetarium at the California Academy of Sciences. In 2018 he became Iowa State's first fulltime in-house integrator.

Pedersen has worked on some exciting innovations at Iowa State. Its Student Innovation Center features a demonstration kitchen that he says is nearly Food Network quality, in addition to a media production space, a podcasting room, a VR Center, and a Classroom in the Round. That last room sports 16 displays in a scoreboard-type layout hanging from the ceiling over center stage.

What Pedersen, 51, loves about being in higher-ed AV is the collaborative spirit among his peers. Through HETMA and the AVIXA Technology Managers Council, he's working to not only build a support system for those in the industry but also a platform for the sharing of best practices. Coming from the corporate world, where trade secrets were closely guarded, this has been a breath of fresh air for him.

"Being able to share what we're doing at Iowa State with other universities – the pros and cons – being able to speak at conferences, that is super refreshing," he says. "It's what higher ed is all about. Research for the sake of research. And I'm proud to be a part of that."

About Conference Technologies Inc.

Conference Technologies, Inc.® (CTI) (www.conferencetech.com) is a leading custom audio-visual systems integration solutions specialist. The St. Louis-based company, founded in 1988, has more than 20 offices across the country and offers a wide variety of services to customers in various industries around the world.

Contact: Miguel Casellas-Gil
[email protected]

SOURCE Conference Technologies, Inc.