This week's home automation podcast features our host Ron Callis interviewing Nathan Holmes. Recorded live on Wednesday, April 26th, 2017 at 12:30 p.m. EST. 

About Nathan Holmes

In his role as Technical Trainer, Nathan helps integrators succeed by guiding them in best practices and providing helpful resources. Nathan has nearly a decade of technical expertise within the custom integration industry.

Interview Recap

During the live interview, One Firefly CEO Ron Callis, Jr. asked Nathan a series of questions surrounding what Access Networks has to offer to dealers as well as his thoughts on the current state of the networking and home automation industry.

Watch the video to see Ron and Nathan discuss topics such as:

• Best practices and strategies for technical training
• The biggest networking mistakes integrators make most often
• The role of robotics and the automation industry in homes and businesses
• Astrophysics and what’s really in the center of a black hole

SEE ALSO: Home Automation Podcast Episode #1: A Custom Integration Industry Q&A With Paul Starkey

Transcript:

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Ron:  Hello everyone. Ron Callis here with One Firefly. Thanks for joining me for this Facebook live session. We're going to do another industry Q and A as I promised on our last one. We're going to try to do this every Wednesday around noon either noon or 12:30. So stay tuned we'll be sure to keep you guys updated. I'm excited, today we've got Nathan Holmes he's a good friend of mine from the industry. He's been in the AV industry now for over 20 years and we're going to learn about his background his perspectives on the industry and in terms of timing. We're going to try to keep this to around 30-40 minutes. You know I've got some feedback on our interview last week or a couple weeks ago with Paul Starkey from Bravas that ran maybe a little bit longer. That was around an hour or so. We're going to try to keep this in theory down to around maybe half of that or three quarters. I'm going to just give me a moment here. I'm going to look over on our company's Facebook page to make sure that it looks like this is coming in. All right. Looks like we're coming in. OK. And again thank you for watching. I'm going to try to also do a much better job this time around of answering questions that show up in the feed. So I'm also going to ask for some feedback in the news feed in the comments section so please interact with us. Nathan and I, we want to have fun and your questions or comments even you know telling us we look funny or don't sound right. All of that's good stuff. Please comment. So let's go ahead and let's meet Nathan. Let me bring him in here. How are you doing Nathan?

Nathan: I'm good Ron. How are you doing today?

Ron:  Oh just another day in paradise. How's your day going so far?

Nathan: It's good. Got up a little earlier than normal so we can do this. But you know it's SoCal. So it's nice and sunny and beautiful out here. So it'll be a good day. And it's my birthday. So you know..

Ron:  It's your birthday. Holy cow. Are you shy? Do you mind telling our Facebook audience how old you are?

Nathan: No, I am 46 today.

Ron:  Forty-six. Awesome. Did you get any big plans?

Nathan: No it's pretty low-key. This isn't one of the big ones so you know spend some time with my wife and a bunch people get together Friday night for dinner but nothing big.

Ron:  Hey, Nathan, you're getting a bunch of happy birthdays here on the page.

Nathan: Wonderful.

Ron:  Yeah. So everyone is wishing you best wishes and you live, where exactly do you live? Are you in Los Angeles, San Diego?

Nathan: I'm in Los Angeles actually West Hills which is in the San Fernando Valley north side of Los Angeles.

Ron:  OK. So you and I go back a long time Nathan and but many of our audience may not know you may not know your background. Do you mind helping me and the audience understand a little bit about you and how you got started here in the A.V. industry?

Nathan: Yeah absolutely. I think if we go back far enough you know I got my first computer back in the early '80s probably '81 '82 and was programming back then got into robotics and things like that in high school and eventually went into electronics engineering technology went to college for, specializing in robotics and control systems so I've always had a passion for electronics. I actually got into the industry though in the mid-'90s I started working for a company called American Telecasting, I was doing point to point microwave dish installations for cable service in southwest Florida I was living in Fort Myers at the time and I did that for a couple of years and then moved into premise distribution doing campus-wide data networks fiber optics. I was Bixi certified at one point doing you know your typical you know five-six thousand data drops you know fiber between multiple buildings. That was cool. But then I had an opportunity to go work for an integrator in Naples by the name of Designer Audio. Designer Audio, at the time, was probably one of the premier integrators in the country if not Florida. And it opened my eyes to the whole residential AV industry and really fell in love with it, eventually left Designer Audio in '99, open my company called Acoustic Accents, ran that for a couple years was a top ten Crestron dealer in the state of Florida. So after I sold the company and managed it for a while you and I met when I went to work for Crestron, you and I were both regional sales managers there at the same time.

Ron:  That was back in 2003.

Nathan: Yep. 2003 and '04 and got to drive all around the state, get to see everybody, it was good. And then from there, I went to managing a company in Naples Florida for a was a branch of an East Coast integrator, then took over in 2006. I moved to Colorado and took over training and career development for Paragon. We had at the time, what three four offices between Vail Aspen Steamboat Springs and the main office in Glenwood Springs. So I was handling training, career development for all eighty-five people. I also started teaching for CEDIA. At the time I was teaching project management and then 2000 and from there. Then I went to Boulder, fall off the mountain, break my neck three hundred stitches in the head. Things like that while driving through Colorado.

Ron:  That's not a joke. That's a real story, right? You really had a boulder fall on your head or on your truck?

Nathan: Yeah I was on Interstate 70 driving between or driving to Glenwood Springs from Gypsum in a moving truck and coming out of hanging like tunnel a big boulder fell off the mountain crushed our truck broke my neck three hundred stitches in the head. Things like that.

Ron:  How big was this rock.

Nathan: About 500 pounds. It was broke. It ripped through the whole cab of the truck and went into the back broke a bunch of equipment and things I had back there but I survived it and end of the day I've got a full range of motion and for the most part no side effects. So grateful for that but yeah. When you look at having to drive. I mean I was going between all those offices every week so I was still driving on all Colorado roads every day and you look at these sales I kind of got it was time to move on from there just from the ease and peace side of things. So a good friend of mine and I went to open an AV company in Las Vegas. Unfortunately, we opened it in December of 2007 and we all know what happened in 2008 with the recession.

Ron:  Remember that's the same time frame I opened Firefly Design Group back on December 1st, 2007.

Nathan: Yeah exact same time I opened up our company down there, unfortunately.

Ron:  I think we both did not have a crystal ball or a magic 8 ball or anything.

Nathan: No. It was brutal and Las Vegas is one of those areas too where once you get in they'll hold you and help you succeed but until you do you're an outsider. And I was that outsider and you know it was difficult to get anybody to kind of utilize our services and grow so it did some consulting and then really it looked like it was we needed to move on to something else because the recession was really getting hard. So I ended up moving to Los Angeles and took over running a company called Future Home for Murray Kunis who is actually a CEDIA founding member.

Ron:  Sure.

Nathan: For seven years I ran Future Home and it was great and we worked on some amazing projects and during that time I met a Hagi who owned Access Networks. So when it became time for that next move I approached Hagi and we talked and it became a good fit. They were looking for a technical trainer and having the experience of being an integrator. And I was also, we were Access Network's second dealer. So I'd been using their products since really they began and grown with it so I knew what I thought very well. So it became a good fit to come on board as a technical trainer and that's where I currently am is at Access Networks as their Technical Trainer.

Ron:  Yes. Can you provide a little more color around that? What specifically are your roles and duties as a technical trainer. What does it mean to be the Technical Trainer for Access Networks? And how long has that role existed? That's something that's always been a part of their staffing and requirements is to have that level person on?

Nathan: No actually it hasn't. This was something that they had felt they needed for a while. The role of training had kind of fallen to a lot of the members of the sales team or Hagi or engineering and we also when we first started, our offering was a little different. So the training was a little less . So as we diversified our product offerings it became really apparent that the more training we could provide to assist our dealers the greater their success would be. So the position was actually created for me. And we've kind of done. It's been multifaceted. One side of it was to do some things that really were not what you would consider technical training. Meaning I've helped develop the dealer portal and a lot of the behind the scenes type of information for the dealers to log in and obtain this information. Plus I work with the sales team. It's kind of a bridge between engineering and sales and I'm kind of an in-between the two. So depending on where we're at it becomes kind of a tag-team approach. If it's a dealer needs more sales support and sales is there. But I can handle the more in-depth technical side of things. When it comes to the technical training we've developed kind of a number of different things. We've done some CE Pro webinars which I typically keep those much more technology and standards-based rather than specifically access networks. I try to ensure that because CE Pro has a much wider dealer base that we keep things as in my opinion is beneficial for a vast variety of people so like our first presentation was on Wi-Fi in RF technology and the basics behind that and understanding how Wi-Fi in and RF works and then somewhat a ruckus will outperform the competition. The next was on why you do. The only way to do multiple V'landys when looking at a best practice scenario is used layer 3 switches and that deals with a whole bunch of things but really kind of shows where router on a stick works and very limited situations. But as the system grows layer 3 is the only way to do multiple v'landys.

Ron:  Is much of the training that Access Networks does, is it virtual is it a webinar formats and or video conferencing or do you do trainings and trade shows or do you go out into the field? What are the mechanics behind the training that you guys do for your dealers?

Nathan: We do all of the above. I've done the CE Pro's, I do specific PowerPoint presentations that we can send to the dealer either in PDF or PowerPoint format. I will do webinars with the dealers either on specific topics we've determined or focused training for the dealers to help them understand different elements of our product offerings. At CEDIA last year we did 17 presentations in the booth. I also teach networking for CEDIA. So we try to go as much as we can and in a variety of ways. We're now recording a lot of the presentations that we've done into small you know five, excuse me, five to seven-minute videos and so you can dive into different aspects and have a quick video refresher on either technologies or our procedures and processes so we tried to really use any tools we can get at our disposal and we look at dealer feedback to see which have been most embraced and then try to duplicate that in the future.

Ron:  Now it's my observation I don't have any specific data behind it to back it up but I have an observation that you guys are blowing up, Access Network seems to be everywhere. You know the growth I know you're opening up a brand new office now on the east coast up in Pennsylvania. Are you guys blowing up I mean are you guys really growing? Maybe I'm perceiving. And if so what do you attribute that success to that growth?

Nathan: We are growing and we've managed to grow very consistently every year. And we went from you know single office to two offices out here to now opening the third office in Easton. We've continued to diversify our product offerings so I think there's a lot of things that really brought us there. I think the team is our biggest and the best aspect of us is our entire team from the you know we have what eight or nine Cisco certified engineers on staff to.. Really Hagi had the vision from the beginning to bring the stability and reliability that you find in the enterprise networking world into the residential industry. So we've done that our custom systems have you know for over a decade been the highest performing the most stable in the environment. And I think when you look at the industry that's been the key. The products that have been unstable in the industry have undermined the success of companies and or integrators. So as we've continued to show the stability of our systems, it's allowed our dealers to have a greater positive response from all their end-users so they tend to embrace us more fully. And we've continued to bring as much as we can of the highest quality offerings into the line from you know evolving our custom systems from you know solely multiple v'landys and now flat networks and then manage wireless to adding distribution products with Ruckus and SurgeZ, Luxal to you know our latest offering of live monitoring which is a new spin on really what we've seen in the industry we've seen a lot of devices that will monitor your network and provide you some data but a lot of times just becomes noise in the background because you get so much. Whereas we've produced a product that will monitor the network specifically and our engineers will then receive the notifications and most of the time be able to resolve issues proactively before you even are even notified of them. So it's a new take on monitoring but it really just is in line with everything else we've always provided which was enterprise-grade support plus enterprise-grade programming for enterprise-grade products which you need all three to really grab enterprise-grade solution.

Ron:  What is the role of the new facility on the East Coast?

Nathan: There'll be a multitude of things we will have programming. Our programming takes place in multiple offices so we will be developing and programming systems in Easton and shipping them. So it will dramatically decrease shipping times to the east coast along with distribution as well. It allows us to grow our engineering team and staff and we're probably going to do training facilities out there as well. We're still vetting out how that's going to go but our hope is to hold different events trainings and bring people into kind of show you what we do and what our special flavor on everything is.

Ron:  Now you've been in the industry as you as we started out with, you've been in the industry on all different sides of the equation you said 20 years or so. Now that you're in this role and you're working one on one with integrators and you see kind of behind the scenes. What do you see as some of the more common mistakes they're making specifically in the realm of networking? What do you think they're doing wrong or could be doing better and you know you'd really like to get that message out.

Nathan: You know I think it goes back to a lot of the stuff I actually learned when I was getting Bixi certified and things back in the late '90s. Everything in networking is based on standards and reliability or dedication to those standards. And I think that's what I've seen as the biggest failing in our industry is we don't have companies that on a regular are doing all of the testing and certification of things. It's one thing to put a wire map on, it's another thing to actually certify a line. Nothing happens in the enterprise world without certification and adhering to best practice. Things like that because they know if you don't it'll fail. So we have an industry of extremely smart people who are continually trying to reinvent the wheel. Sometimes they do very well but there's a lot of standards that were developed to ensure reliability and that's where our strength as an industry grows so as when companies are defining their networks and designing them I think a lot of times they are afraid to approach the end-users with the reality what they need. I mean your network is the backbone of your system. It is the most critical element of everything functioning reliably in the home. I mean the integrators we know that have drawn the lines in the sand and said This is what your network would be period. Everything else is negotiable. Are the dealers that have the highest success rates and have grown the most in the industry. The whole industry's evolving to where everything is IOT and network-based. And if you don't have the proper infrastructure both wired and wireless it fails. So it's adhering to the knowledge of how many square feet designed for access point. Why do you only use layer three searches for multiple v'landys? Or what are the very rare circumstances where that isn't applicable to your infrastructure ? Why are patch panels and wall plates so much more beneficial for certification and verifying that your project is going to be stable over time. You know all of these different elements are required to produce the highest-performing networks and I think that's really where the industry fails is the consumer has been told for decades that you can do everything on this piece of equipment from your cable company or a 50 dollar product that you bought at your local big-box retailer and although that was definitely the case in many applications 10 years ago that's not the case today. You know you're running houses that have got you know upwards of 100 devices concurrently using the network at any given time. And if you don't acknowledge that and focus on it, it creates the instabilities.

Ron:  How prevalent of a problem is this? Let's say I've heard numbers that maybe they're going to say approximately ten thousand integrators of different shapes and sizes throughout North America. And let's say they're all doing at least a couple of projects a year. Many of them you know 50 to 100 plus a year. What percentage of those projects do you think are suffering from a poorly designed network that maybe is causing ghost in the machine sort of problems or other issues in the home?

Nathan: I think there's a lot. I think the industry itself is kind of it's bifurcating into two different subsets. You've got technology facilitators and technology integrators. Technology facilitators are a lot of the newer companies that have developed over the last few years which are really helping customers work through a lot of things that are considered DIY that a customer could do but they just don't take the time or anything so they hire somebody to come in and really help them with all of these individual products that they want in here. The products are not really designed to integrate together but they work okay on their own. And some great on their own. And then you've got the integrators the ones that are trying to integrate everything and provide a seamless user interface for people or you've got all of your you know different features from you know we did this at Crestron, you know you're letting the see your audio you're getting everything from centralized interfaces. Those two different subsets utilize the network or have the ability to market the network very differently. The facilitators I don't think generally have the project sizes and or the client the customer education where they realize how much more they should spend to make sure the network is where it should be. So, you have a lot of people that hey I took this out of the box and the manufacturer says this and it should be doing this and you're fighting to get it to work with other devices. And so the experience is ok at best. And then when you get into the technology integrators, if they've taken the time to really to develop standards that work for their business I think that's where you see more success. And it can be across the board from a smaller greater to a large integrator if you know your product inside and out you know its capabilities. You know how to configure it. You've got networking standards. You definitely succeed better than somebody who's trying to nurse new news product or hasn't developed those standards so it's difficult to say which you know how many are suffering but there is a lot it is definitely a lot. I mean people, they don't even understand like when you design for proper wireless coverage. New technology like we've got now a bit of an AC. You plan for five gig coverage which means fifteen hundred square feet per access point. You've got people, you know installs, where you've got two access points at an eight thousand square foot house and you have connectivity which you have nowhere near the experience you could have. So that network is absolutely suffering even though it's still functional. So there's you know it's a we get into it. It's a difficult question to answer. I guess that's right something..

Ron:  I'm going to come at it from a different direction here. You see a lot you have seen a lot as in past tense. What are some of the newer technologies on the forefront that really have you excited for our industry. Let's go. It doesn't have to be network related. What are you seeing out there that you think is going to be a significant component or player in the life of an integrator as they move forward. That's a hard one. I mean most of the technologies that we're seeing we didn't come here for easy questions.

Nathan: And I'm telling you the things people are excited about you know today are things that we were doing on most of the high-end projects you know 10 15 20 years ago.

Ron:  By the way, Sean is saying Sean Sturmer just messaged in and he said Z wave. What are your thoughts and comments on Zwave?

Nathan: I think a lot of things from. Z wave is definitely doing a lot to push the industry to adopt standards of integration which I think is vital for the next level of success to occur. Like I said we're seeing things now that really we were doing 10 years ago and really there 20 years ago on all the high-end systems but now they're at smaller consumer-available price points. But the biggest problem they created is they don't integrate with each other. They're designed to hold your own ecosystem. Z wave has been a proponent for you know really since the beginning of providing a platform of interoperability between devices which I think is our key moving forward in a lot of ways. This is, the Wi-Fi is great. You know the different all the technologies are coming out it's easy to get onboard it's easy to do these things. But I think the real things that we're going to see is as we get developed standards, this is where we can really grow as an industry and see the biggest returns and the people adopting more because that's what produces the stability. Outside of industry, I think things like you know autonomous cars. To me those are awesome. Those are things that you know growing up you would have loved to have had and seen I think.

Ron:  The fact that every one of your neighbors now has a quadcopter and is an RC pilot. I mean who saw that coming?

Nathan: You know and it is very it's interesting I think technology has gone faster than people expected in some ways. So there are some really neat things out there but I'm not sure which I would say is the neatest.

"We all know that robots are building our cars these days."

Ron:  No, I think there's a lot of neat stuff now. What's your opinion on the role that if any, that our industry that you and I have been in for the last I've been in it for 18 years, might play with robotics and the concept of robotics in the home or robotics in the office? We all know that robots are building our cars these days but do you have an opinion or you read up on that subject?

Nathan: Well yeah I mean robotics has been a passion to me for 30 years. And I mean what is a robot? It's a mechanical device that performs said action based on a particular input. You know whether it's a Roomba vacuum that's going around and auto-sensing walls and everything to your control system. Noticing that you know your phone has entered a particular room and therefore automatically adjusting the music lighting art whatever to your proper settings. These are all in reality robotics to some form or extent.

Ron:  Do you see a day where our integrators are selling robots of some sort?

Nathan: We're already here. I mean you've got people that are selling Roombas and things like that, those are robots.

Ron:  Yeah but your average integrator today is not selling robots.

Nathan: No, but what they are selling. How is that any different than say a pressure sensor pad in the floor that will automate all of your lighting throughout your house?

"I think this industry is poised to potentially capitalize as these technologies and solutions evolve."

Ron:  I would position that it's not much different. That's why I think this industry is poised to potentially capitalize as these technologies and solutions evolve. There was a recent story in CE Pro, I want to say maybe in the last month on this subject and I went in the comments and put my two cents in but I think it's coming. I think it's hard for a lot of folks to imagine you know our industry selling or being involved in robotics. But I think that my opinion is the future's not too far out. Maybe not tomorrow maybe not next year but I think it's in the near future.

"I think that we need to get past where we anthropomorphize robots and just think of them as this human-looking being that's sitting next to us on the couch."

Nathan: I think you're right. I think that we need to get past where we anthropomorphize robots and just think of them as this human-looking being that's sitting next to us on the couch. I mean the automotive industry using robotics basically..

Ron:  Keep it clean Nathan.

Nathan: No no I'm saying. I mean the automotive industry you know building a car they don't look like humans but those are robots. So even in your house the things are coming in. And our industry knows the home and the residents better than you know any architect or somebody outside of the industry would. When it comes to integrating something that deals with technology and mechanics.

Ron:  Now Lewis Galvan just messaged us on Facebook and Lewis is down in Mexico. He's actually one of my former rockstar employees and he's down with a fantastic company down in Mexico. And he says what do you think about voice command recognition?

Nathan: I think voice is definitely one of the biggest things the industry is seeing because of the fact that it's something we do day in and day out. Therefore it's comfortable. We've found over the years that the biggest thing that an end-user has to have is comfort with their interface. If a remote is scary to them or has too many things in front of them it gives them fear and they don't want to touch it they fear they're going to break it whereas they don't think they can break something when they're just talking. So I think it's very rapidly being adopted and I think you know Alexa and things like that because of their price points have promoted a whole bunch of new people showing interest in connecting things within the home. I think when you look at the variety of it. You know something like Josh A.I. that is an amazing voice-activated system that is perfectly suited for a fully integrated home where it can really take you almost to a conversational level. So there's gonna be a vast variety of them and I think it's really important to be aware of what their capabilities are how they interact and to understand that it's also just another interface. It's whether you've got touch panels on the wall a motion sensor in a room voice activation a handheld remote. Any of these things are just interfaces and a key to success in our industry is understanding how to best use interfaces for each client. What is going to make each client have a better experience.

Ron:  From your perspective, are you seeing more integrators using voice input as an input to the system?

Nathan: Absolutely. They're trying to do it as much as possible. The shortcomings right now are the limited amounts of integration. It works great on the few things that it does integrate with that they've spent the time but it gets us back to that you know the statement of standards. If we had a standard of interface you know standard integration language if you want to call it, standard protocol base, that allowed any manufacturer to interface with another it would vastly increase the amount of adoption that people are doing. I think a lot of the IOT companies don't understand that by holding people in their ecosphere and not adopting a standard it's decreasing the amount of exposure they could have. And I think as more people embrace voice because it's so easy if we can get to a point where we have a unified standard. If the industry is poised to explode at levels people never seen if we can get to the right standards.

Ron:  Sean is pointing out here on Facebook that there's clearly the issue of lack of margins in selling Google Voice or Alexa and that's obviously top of mind. I think for a lot of dealers and manufacturers. It's just hard to factor that into the equation but I think we'll maybe go into that at a different time on another Q and A. But do you want to put two cents on that?

"It's a matter of how do we either provide a higher level of performance from a different product or embrace the features of these products in a way that allows us to sell our service and the things behind the scenes that we do already sell for profitability."

Nathan: I do. I want to think about what we are. End of the day, we've never been anything more than a service industry. There were times where we've had you know great profitability on many products and it was a boom to our businesses. But end of the day that was the initial sale. The strength of your business many times was based on the recurring revenue streams you could generate from service plans and or just service of your customers. We're a service industry. You know we don't make hardly anything on TVs anymore either but we sell them day in and day out. So we know which ones are the better ones and which ones aren't. I think it's the same issue with voice and let's face it. Google and Amazon and things like that are not going away. It's a matter of how do we either provide a higher level of performance from a different product or embrace the features of these products in a way that allows us to sell our service and the things behind the scenes that we do already sell for profitability. Again if you're looking at it is the entire system, no you make no money it's hard to sell. But if you look at it as one of many possible interfaces and you develop in your company standards of approach, just like everything else it becomes very easy to take that small margin and use it as an entry point to make a ton of money.

Ron:  All right. So now for the most important question of our session here, as you probably know I am a hobbyist student of astrophysics.

Nathan: And the making of you know small planes...

Ron:  And small planes and robots. I do all of these things on all of my spare time. But recently scientists have been able to photograph for the first time a black hole and they're still processing the data but this just happened like in the last week or two. And so there is a question for you what's what is inside of a black hole?

Nathan: Well let me pose a different question back. How do you photograph a black hole when a photograph is the capture of reflected light and the black hole is absorbing light.

Ron:  So would you like to know the answer to that question?

Nathan: I actually do.

Ron:  Because at the event horizon, the gravity is so strong that it is pulling molecules apart and all sorts of energy as it's being sucked in is then being emitted. Across the entire spectrum of wavelengths of energy they are admitting. So you can actually pick up the ring of the black hole, you don't see the black hole because light can't escape. But on the perimeter, the event horizon, there are tremendous amounts of energy escaping and that apparently can be photographed. Apparently, it's not very easy because they've been trying for a long time but I haven't seen the pictures yet but surprisingly it can be photographed.

Nathan: I would love to think that you know the potential to travel you know either vast distances or through time you know those things would actually be potentially possible through the black hole. I've no idea what's out there. You know it's beyond our comprehension that there's I think there's still so many things in our universe that I mean I could go into you know an interesting conversation with Mark Levinson on things that we had on just things within the human body that are affected by electromechanical waves . Things that you don't think about and or necessarily think that they would affect you in the way they do happen all around us. There are energies and things that we can't see and you know I think it's great to have these things that we focus our minds on because it gives us something no matter what that we can never know everything. So we're always striving for more.

Ron:  Amen. Well, Nathan, I appreciate you joining me sir on your birthday.

Nathan: Thank you for having me.

Ron:  I did not get to get into Guns and Roses and the Guns and Roses tie in, one of my favorite bands of all time. And we will have to save that good stuff for the next interview. But I really appreciate you joining me for this industry Q and A and have a great day and a great rest of your week sir.

Nathan: Thank you, Ron, as always it was great to catch up. We need to do it more often. And thank you for having me. And on behalf of myself and Access Networks, we appreciate your support and again thank you.

Show Notes

Nathan Holmes is Technical Trainer for Access Networks. Access Networks is a California-based company provides tailored enterprise-grade networking solutions for professional integrators throughout the United States. Nathan has nearly a decade of technical expertise within the custom integration industry. In his current role,  he helps integrators succeed by guiding them in best practices and providing helpful resources.

Ron Callis is the CEO of One Firefly, LLC, a digital marketing agency based out of South Florida and creator of Automation Unplugged. Founded in 2007, One Firefly has quickly become the leading marketing firm specializing in the integrated technology and security space. The One Firefly team work hard to create innovative solutions to help Integrators boost their online presence, such as the elite website solution, Mercury Pro.

Resources and Links from the Interview:

• Josh AI
• CE Pro
• Z-Wave

You can also learn more about Access Networks at https://www.accessnetworks.com/.. Be sure to follow them on Facebook.