BUSINESS
Who: Tony Marra, owner/founder of Thermal Relief Design, Inc.
Where: “Vegas, Baby!”
When: “I started the company with my wife, Lori, as TLM Electronics in 1987 in Pleasantville, N.Y. When we moved to Las Vegas in 1996 I changed the name to Thermal Relief Design.”
Oh, so you’re heating and cooling… “I should get this out of the way: When I started Thermal Relief Design in Vegas, I was doing a lot of PCB design for manufacturers. A ‘thermal relief’ is a PCB term for a pad that is ‘relieved’ from a large copper area to aid PCB soldering. And since we’re in one of the hottest cities in the country (it’s just dry heat, though…), I thought the name fit us. To this day, you won't believe how many people call us to ask if we repair air conditioners.”
Services provided: Thermal Relief services most pro audio equipment manufactured today, all the way from large format digital consoles to Switch Mode Pulse Width Modulation Amplifiers. In Las Vegas, they are known as the “Guitar Amplifier Specialists” as all the music stores send their broken amps to them. Even the local techs look them up when they are stumped.
Full-time employees: Four who occupy tech benches and do double duty with reception, shipping/receiving, office management and Web site design.
Current clients served include: Big: Clair Brothers, Delicate Productions and Solotech. Local and regional: New World Audio, HAS Productions and Soundsmith; and everything in between.
First gig of note: “The 1977 Rod Stewart Tour. One day I went straight from installing discotheques in Buffalo to setting up the PA for 20,000-seat auditoriums for Rod’s 1977 National Tour.”
Recent company highlight: Making payroll again this month.
Badge of honor: “I survived with my hearing intact after serving three years on the road as house engineer for Ted Nugent (1977-1980).”
Why the hoopla? “We are deeply concerned about customer satisfaction. Our motto from Vince Lombardi is posted in everyone’s workspace: ‘We are going to relentlessly chase perfection, knowing full well we will not catch it, because nothing is perfect. But we are going to relentlessly chase it, because in the process, we will catch excellence. I am not remotely interested in just being good.’”
PERSONAL
Home front: Wife and “volunteer” bookkeeper, Lori; son, Joseph; and Sisco, the Bassett Hound.
People might be surprised to know: “I still cry every time I see Mrs. Jumbo taken away from Dumbo the flying elephant.”
“If I could tell my younger self one thing, it would be... Quit being curious about how stuff works and be more conscious of how much you can sell it for. There’s more money in sales than service.”
“Best part about my job is… I’m the boss, and I can come in whenever I like, leave whenever I like and take days off whenever I like.”
“Biggest drag about my job is… I’m the boss, so I gotta be here first in the morning, be the last to leave at night and work seven days a week, 52 weeks a year.”
“If and when I get on vacation, you’ll find me… in a lonely mountain stream fly fishing for brook trout.”
“My pet peeve about live concerts is… tickets have gotten too expensive. It’s hard for the young kids to be exposed to real live music as opposed to CDs and MP3s when concert tickets are so expensive.”
“The best concert I probably ever saw was… in 1980, Pink Floyd performing The Wall in Los Angeles, Calif.”
“What CD is in my car right now… nothing because my CD player is broken. But if it was working, I’d be listening to Jimi Hendrix, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Robin Trower and Kenny Wayne Shepherd.”
“In the kitchen, I make a mean… pasta sauce. Load it on some of my homemade manicottis and meatballs and you’d think you died and went to heaven.”
Words to live by: “Do what has to be done, when it has to be done, as well as it can be done, and do it that way every time.”
