On this episode of “Simplifying Life Through Technology,” Mark, Michelle, and Andrew from SoundVision sit down with Phil Harrington, our project manager at SoundVision. Phil is responsible for coordinating project schedules, building and maintaining client relations, and making sure projects run smoothly.
We learn where Phil is originally from and his relation to Charlotte, NC. Phil started his career in education after getting a degree in physical education from Appalachian State. He worked in several roles as a teacher, assistant principal, and athletic director. Phil’s extensive background in education and even-keeled personality made him an asset as a project manager. Learn how Phil’s education journey led him to the world of audio video.
We talk about:
Phil’s hard work at SoundVision does not go unnoticed, he is an asset to our team.
Check out our website for more information:
Learn more about our team at SoundVision:
https://www.svavnc.com/our-team/
On this episode of “Simplifying Life Through Technology,” Mark, Michelle, and Andrew from SoundVision sit down with Phil Harrington, our project manager at SoundVision. Phil is responsible for coordinating project schedules, building and maintaining client relations, and making sure projects run smoothly.
We learn where Phil is originally from and his relation to Charlotte, NC. Phil started his career in education after getting a degree in physical education from Appalachian State. He worked in several roles as a teacher, assistant principal, and athletic director. Phil’s extensive background in education and even-keeled personality made him an asset as a project manager. Learn how Phil’s education journey led him to the world of audio video.
We talk about:
Phil’s hard work at SoundVision does not go unnoticed, he is an asset to our team.
Check out our website for more information:
Learn more about our team at SoundVision:
https://www.svavnc.com/our-team/
Welcome to Simplifying Life Through Technology. Joining us today, we have our project manager, phil Harrington. Alongside Phil and I, joining us are our Chief Executive Officer, mark DiPetro, and our Chief Operating Officer, michelle Furlotto. Welcome, phil, thank you for being here with us today.
Speaker 2:Thank you for having me on the podcast Excited.
Speaker 1:We're excited to have you. So, Phil, tell us a little bit about yourself.
Speaker 2:Well, I grew up in Charlotte, North Carolina, here, so I'm a local, which is kind of rare.
Speaker 3:You and.
Speaker 2:Zach.
Speaker 4:That's right, zach, and I did grow up here. Everybody here is very tall. You and Zach are both very, very tall.
Speaker 2:I'm about 6'3" 6'4" somewhere in between there, but I grew up in Charlotte. I was actually born in Savannah Georgia.
Speaker 2:And wasn't there long. We moved to Atlanta when I was a child as well, and then family moved from there to Columbia, all before I ended up back in Charlotte in second grade. And I stayed back in Charlotte because my mom grew up in Charlotte and went to high school in Charlotte. So they're originally kind of from here and just kind of moved away when I was little. When I answer that question of where I'm from, it's always I'm from Charlotte. That's my hometown, where I've been, and I mentioned my mom that side of the family. She's one of 12 siblings, so 12 children.
Speaker 4:Wow, you do have a big family. You have a reunion. That's a big deal.
Speaker 2:Well, we have a reunion. We have a big reunion. Yes, every day.
Speaker 1:So Are you guys all close?
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, yeah. That side, we're very close. On that side Everybody keeps in touch. And the interesting thing was is it went from, you know sibling-wise, went boy, girl boy, girl, boy, girl boy, girl boy, girl, all the way down.
Speaker 3:Really, oh my gosh, six boys and six girls.
Speaker 4:That's crazy. Yeah, that's crazy.
Speaker 2:So now I have 30 cousins on that one side. So, yeah, big family, so that's had a big impact on me and who I am as a person in general.
Speaker 4:What's your background, though, when, after you got out of high school, what happened?
Speaker 2:Went to Appalachian State in North Carolina, tried to figure out what I wanted to do for a couple years actually Couldn't really figure out the path that I wanted to go on and ended up choosing physical education because I had a great coach and mentor in high school and I figured that if somebody can have that type of impact on someone, that's what I wanted to do with my life. So chose to go into education and specifically physical education, so I could coach one day and be a part of that and hopefully have that same type of impact. So graduated from Appalachian State, came back to Charlotte and got my first job as a PE teacher, had an elementary school, did that for a couple years, went on to another elementary school and was a PE teacher there for two years before I became the assistant principal there. So I went back to get my master's in educational leadership, which was in a school administrator.
Speaker 4:Andrew, that means Phil's the smartest person in the room.
Speaker 2:Not at all.
Speaker 1:On paper. That's right On paper.
Speaker 2:So did that and was the assistant principal for three years at the CM school. That was prior two years for a PE. And then I moved over to high school local high school as the athletic director Sorry, the school I was at ain't Mark feeds into Christ the King, which is kind of the local two Catholic high schools. I was the athletic director at Christ the King for the next six years. The reason I decided to leave from school administration to that was because I felt like I had gotten away from my original goal to get into education, to mentor and be around athletics and have that impact.
Speaker 4:Bill did coach girls basketball, and Phil was known for a particular characteristic of when he coached he had a particular dress that he wore.
Speaker 2:So as a basketball coach, kind of my game day attire was having a sweater vest on with a tie and stuff like that. So it kind of became a thing at the school where you know, fear the vest type of thing Fear the vest.
Speaker 2:Hashtag fear the vest. But yeah, so as I did, I hired Mark DiPetro here. That was seven years ago now or so. We worked together for five years at Christ the King and did a lot of great things, but I needed a little change in my life. And we had a good conversation one day and Mark gave me a chance here at Soundvision to do something a little bit different, but as a similar characteristics and what I was doing, similar description of the job, it's just in a different world, right?
Speaker 4:So that's how I got here. That's something that over time we've learned here. When we grew, we were looking for somebody that had industry specific experience, and so in project management which is where Phil is after a while we kind of realized you know what. You don't have to know audio video stuff to be a project manager here, and as a matter of fact, that may not even be helpful in some instances. So we looked for the characteristics of what a successful project manager would look like, and Phil basically had all of those.
Speaker 3:Can I ask you a question, Phil?
Speaker 2:Sure.
Speaker 3:When you hired Mark. I'd just like to touch on that for a moment.
Speaker 2:I won't go into too much details but I met Mark because I had to fill in as the soccer coach to school. I was actually coaching that our coach couldn't be there at the time and I met Mark for the first time that day. I am not the greatest soccer coach I would say I'm a good basketball coach, good tennis coach, but soccer isn't my sport. And I think Mark recognized that right away from just watching the game and how the boys are playing, and he asked if you know, if we wanted any goalie support type of thing. I kind of reached out to him but then from there we had a pretty good conversation. Mark had some ideas in mind and he wanted to make sure that Shocker, he wanted to make sure that we were on the same page, which was good that we were both on the same page, and that's kind of how it all came about.
Speaker 4:It was the first time I was going to get to see Ben play for CTK and finally trade around the corner from our house and we went. I was like a gas. I'm looking at our goalkeepers play and I'm like fidgeting and can't sit still and Kristen's looking at me and I'm can I fix this? Please, can I fix this?
Speaker 4:So I went down on the field after the game and I went up to Andy the coach and I said look, I know you don't know me, I played goal in college. Your goalkeeping is atrocious, you know it and I know it, I can fix it. Like will you let me fix it? He was like oh God, yes, Incredible. So that's how I remember that part starting.
Speaker 3:It's very interesting to me. You know I didn't know the full story of how that all came to be. It's interesting to work with Mark in different contexts, I'm sure now versus then.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah.
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Speaker 4:Phil is now our project manager. Tell us about some of the stuff you do. What is a project manager in our world?
Speaker 2:Well, I would say that I'm a coordinator of schedules, so nothing too different from what I was doing as an athletic director. I would say that communication is key in my role here. So I would say also that I am kind of like touch all aspects, so like everybody's kind of going through me at some point to figure out what's going on with the jobs or whatever. So it's a super important that I'm able to communicate and coordinate and ensure that everything is on track.
Speaker 2:So I would say that's kind of primary at first, and then it's, you know, talking to builders and superintendents and talking to our customers and making sure that everybody is on the same page of you know when future projects are coming up or when we're going in or there's any issues come about, that I'm aware of it, then I can communicate that to our team here and then go forward. So that's a lot of kind of different things all happening simultaneously. But not boring no, it's not. Every day is different. There's similar things that happen throughout the week, but every day brings different challenges, different excitements, different worries sometimes, but it is definitely not boring.
Speaker 3:Do you have a favorite superintendent that you work with, or just a really solid team?
Speaker 2:Let's say Parker over at Southern Cottage and Ted over at Plattener. All of them have both been helpful for me and their communication is great. So it's been, and Brian too, from Southern Cottage just had great communication. So I would say the three of those guys have been awesome.
Speaker 3:Cool, Having worked with project managers in the past doing a little bit of Phil's role. I think Max from RTL was in my phone already, because I communicated with Max when he was at.
Speaker 2:Granda.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and I remember him as a good communicator. It's one of those things that when you're trying to put all the puzzle pieces together, having somebody on the other team who's also trying to do that as well, it makes a huge difference in kind of the smoothness of a project.
Speaker 4:Yeah, so two things there. One unlike everybody else in this room, phil is very even keel, which is extremely important in Phil's role, and I value that very much and I envy that in a way that you know. It's great for both our customers and project managers that we deal with on a daily basis, and so we thank you for that, because that is certainly an excellent trait.
Speaker 2:Because I am even keeled on the front, on the outside, doesn't necessarily mean on the inside that I am.
Speaker 1:How has the transition been from working in a school for so many years to coming on board with SoundVision?
Speaker 2:When you're around technicians in this group it's fun, it's a great atmosphere and we all have a great relationship, which is awesome. It's key here at SoundVision to me that we all get along and can joke around. But I think the transition from high school it was an easy transition for me from dealing with kids there and then dealing with the stuff here In our industry it's not all that common to have a true full-time project manager.
Speaker 4:I mean, everybody needs project management and they do it in different ways. A lot of times it's somebody wearing multiple hats, whether that's the salesperson, or whether that's the owner, or whether that's whoever Maybe just a technician that's leading the project. But to have somebody that can specialize and actually look at timelines and work within budgets and keep customers updated on what's going on over projects that can be a couple days or, heck, a couple of years, is really, really important, and we find that that is something that helps to set us apart and being able to deliver and communicate over-communicate to our customers. We're really striving to do that. So again, thank you for that, phil, you're welcome.
Speaker 3:So, phil, what's your favorite aspect of the job that you do now?
Speaker 2:I think I kind of already mentioned it. I think it's that I get to be a part of kind of all the different avenues of the business. So like I work with the design team, I work with the service team, I work with our technicians, I work with Freddie and Warehouse, and I think that that's my favorite part about it is that I'm not stuck in kind of one area. I'm kind of dealing with all the different areas.
Speaker 4:Phil, who is your favorite artist or group Musically.
Speaker 2:Of monsters and men.
Speaker 4:I've heard of them. Do you know them, andrew? Not well, not well, okay Cool. And Lord Huron, I've actually heard of them too. I've heard the name.
Speaker 2:I mean, I'm not going to lie, I can't name a song, I don't know them that well, but those would be my two favorite, like kind of bands, like if I was going to go watch a band or whatever or go see a band I did see of monsters and men right before COVID shut everything down. What style of music it's like an indie rock, like an independent rock.
Speaker 4:Okay, all right, cool yeah.
Speaker 2:Same, I would say Lord Huron, similar.
Speaker 4:It's a guitar-based kind of talent. Yeah, okay.
Speaker 2:Gotcha, I'm not sure Mark's a big fan of country or not, but no, no, no, I'm a huge fan of country.
Speaker 4:And actually that's a story too. We used to do music before the games, and for a while Phil would actually curate. What's the role extents on, was it? Oh man, start me up. It's, start me up. So we're Christ the King. So one of the big things is there's no cursing. We just didn't have that, and so the music had to be relatively clean, certainly the language. So we're warming up on the field and here, start me up, start playing. I look at Phil and Phil's up on the hill, so I have to yell and I'm like Phil, phil, do you know the way, or is this? I might want to turn this one off. If you don't, you can Google the lyrics, but it's funny.
Speaker 3:I didn't realize that there were controversial lyrics to that song.
Speaker 2:I wasn't thinking about that one either, guys. I was thinking about all the other songs that could have been playing at the time.
Speaker 4:Well, there's innuendo in songs, but then there's actual lyrics in songs that one actually has Interesting, most iconic sports moment. Okay, good one, there we go.
Speaker 2:For me going to Appalachian State.
Speaker 3:Oh yeah.
Speaker 2:There's one iconic sports moment that I'll never forget. I'll say second best day of my life, wedding being my first best day when Appalachian State beat Michigan and any Appalachian State fan students, alumni, they know where they were on that day, what place. They would tell you where they were on that day and that's just how it was. So for me that is the most iconic sports moment. That's cool.
Speaker 4:Do you know the date Putting you on the spot? I'll go with 2007.
Speaker 2:Okay, I want to say it was September 1st, but I could be wrong.
Speaker 4:Okay, Very cool Cause mine's April 4th 1983, 10, 10 PM. That is the moment that Lorenzo Charles dunked the ball in the pit in Abel Kirkley when NC State won the national championship.
Speaker 1:That's a good one too, Do you follow any sports teams?
Speaker 2:Mostly the local teams. So Hornets Panthers, I have gotten into the Premier League a little bit for soccer, oh yeah. So I've followed Leeds United in the Premier League, so hanging on Yep, that's right. They're hanging on this year they're hanging on by a thread. There's a great documentary that came out in 2020 on Leeds United. That's kind of where I got hooked on them.
Speaker 4:Nice, very cool. Well, michelle, anything else you have to add?
Speaker 3:Sure Phil has a wife, Alyssa, and a beautiful dog named Penny. Penny Good job, and the other thing I know about Phil is that he likes to fish.
Speaker 2:That's right. Anything outdoors but fishing. I love fishing. I can man you and Zach would really hang out.
Speaker 4:You're both tall, you're good at basketball, one of you is good at tennis and you both love to fish man. All right, what kind of fishing?
Speaker 2:I'll do anything really. I do have a fly fishing rod. If I can, I'll do that, but I'll do bass fishing go to the beach saltwater fishing. Oh so you've done Dundeeb Sea Tyson. I have not done Dundeeb Sea fishing. If I go at the beach it's usually like in the waterway or whatever. Oh right on the pier or whatever, yeah, yeah, yeah, I get seasick and I hate getting sick. So real quick story.
Speaker 2:I did go on a cruise to Alaska from Seattle One day. It did get very rough out there, but what we did, Alyssa and I? We went up to the very top where the fitness room was and we got on some treadmills and we started running on the treadmill like jogging on the treadmill, and we couldn't feel the motion of the boat going up and down, up and down. Because we were running, we were kind of doing something active and doing that.
Speaker 4:How did you think to do that?
Speaker 2:I don't know, it just kind of came up. I was like, hey, let's go upstairs and try and see if, like, we can like walk this off or do something and see if that just and that way it worked and that worked.
Speaker 4:It worked Okay.
Speaker 2:Did you see any whales? We did Humpback whales. We saw a pod of killer whales.
Speaker 4:Oh, wow, that's cool, that's awesome, yeah, okay.
Speaker 2:It was a great trip.
Speaker 4:Well, we're very thankful to have you, phil, as part of our team.
Speaker 3:Yes, we are.
Speaker 4:You've made a huge difference, not only in us as a group and as a company, but certainly to our customers as well. You've gotten rave reviews. We appreciate everything that you're doing and we are excited to see where we go in the future with you.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I'm grateful to be here. And, mark, I've learned a ton from you that is really going to go well for me moving forward.
Speaker 4:Very cool. Thank you for that. Well, Andrew, we're ready to take us out.
Speaker 1:Thank you for joining us. You can learn more about SoundVision at soundvisionlakenormancom. You can follow us on Twitter at soundvisionlkn. Find us on Instagram and Facebook at soundvisionllc.