CA&E: Who is/was your mentor? Why?S.O.: I'm not sure if I really had just one. There are a lot of people who I have worked with that I learned a lot from. A couple that stand out in my memory are Rod Kector. He was our shop manager at Quality Auto Sound where I worked in Denver. He would never let me get away with anything and always had us working so hard. That is where I really learned how to be efficient and productive. Of course Jeff Haas for giving me a chance. The biggest turning point for me in my whole career happened one day and I will never forget it. I was at Ultimate Electronics. I had been doing car audio for about three years and I was leading everybody on the pay runs for amount of labor done, so I was very cocky. We had a rep come in from Metra (George Hillbrant). He was talking about how their kits are designed to do an average deck install in about 19 minutes, so of course I had to run my mouth and tell him that they better not come into this shop and expect to make any money being that slow. For the next three hours he talked about things that I could not even understand. That was the day that I realized there is always someone out there that is better and you can never stop learning.
CA&E: When and why did you open a retail store?S.O.: For years I had only been doing show cars for car audio companies. But it was getting harder to get those cars throughout the year so I decided that I should open a retail store. We opened in March of 2006.
CA&E: What type of installs do you cater to?S.O.: We do everything, from the $100 radio installs to anything that you can iZgine we can do.
CA&E: What has been your most memorable:
1. Job And Why?S.O.: I think working at PPI and Team Gates. I had been competing just on a local level in Denver when I was hired at PPI and Team Gates. We had so much fun traveling and competing all over the country.
2. Competition And Why?S.O.: 2003 dB Drag World Finals when I won my first world championship on my own.
3. Vehicle And Why?S.O.: Our Pioneer/Edge Audio Ford F250.
CA&E: What do you want to accomplish in your career?S.O.: Well that changes all the time as I accomplish goals. One of my big goals was to win a world championship. Now I want to continue winning, but I also want to build a successful retail store.
CA&E: When, where and what (SPL or SQ) was your first sound competition (you competed in)?S.O.: 1996 in Denver I had built a 1969 Volkswagen Squareback with two Ground Zero 15s and two Phoenix Gold ZX500 amps. We ended up doing 151.5 at our first show. Then I built a Suburban with six Stroker 15s and six PPI 1200s.
CA&E: Have you ever built a vehicle for sound quality competition purposes?S.O.: Yes, but not one that ever competed at a national level. I am not a big fan of SQ only because I think too much is left up to someone's opinion, not a meter.
CA&E: What made you decide to compete in SPL?S.O.: I have always been a bass head and always will be. It's never loud enough.
CA&E: What was the first SPL vehicle that you built or help build?S.O.: The 1969 Volkswagen squareback.