Who: Brock Adamson, president, CEO and head designer of Adamson Systems Engineering.
What: “What do you think?”
When: Founded in 1983.
Fulltime employees: 55.
Current tours: John Legend, Jay-Z, Feist, Linkin Park and “a lot of church installations and theatres.”
Start of it all: “I was 15 and this stereo geek at our church gave my dad this 150-watt-per-channel stereo. I built the thing up right as Jimi Hendrix’s Are You Experienced? came out. I put “Foxy Lady” on and, from that point forward, I was an audio junky.”
Coming off the line: “We are building a palletized, automated conveyor line for assembling our transducers. On this line there are two ABB, six-axis robots, inverted and hung from a steel structure that we built from scratch. These robots will assemble all of our transducers, dramatically in-creasing our production capacity while simultaneously improving the consistency throughout our product line.”
Claims to fame: Parnellis awarded to several partners, including Linkin Park’s monitor mixer of the year (Kevin “Tater” McCarthy), FOH mixer of the year (Ken “Pooch” Van Druten) and tour manager of the year (Mike Amato).
Philosophy: “We like to build things that are uncompromised. We strive to get the best materials and respect the audio path. We look for density and rigidity. I had a competitor once look at a cone and say, ‘That’s the most macho speaker I’ve seen.’ And that was just the cone.”
Ethics: “People here have dirt under their fingernails. It’s not compartmentalized. There’s a lot of cross-pollination and our guys are very hands on.”
Who is that lady we saw you with: Wife’s name is Orchid, and is a key component of the operation. She’s affectionately known as “boss lady.”
That he knows of: Son, Jesse Adamson, director of marketing and sales.
Can I get some satisfaction: “The best part is the satisfaction of realizing that we have established the company. We’ve gotten to a good place. We own our real estate, we’re planning an expansion… it’s the difference between planting a garden and growing it. We can plan what to do next.”
Biggest drag: “You still see the very junior people dorkin’ out. I’ve come all the way from starting this company in a garage, and that experience causes you to watch out for the trivial things because those are the things that can bite you and hurt you. I have a good eye for details and I look out for those things.”
Pet peeve about concerts: “When engineers don’t understand the difference between being loud and being powerful. If it’s just loud to the point where everyone has earplugs, where is the fidelity?”
Best concert ever: “Live Rust in San Francisco . It was awesome.”
At the end of the day: “It’s a great business and has been good to me. Designing and building better systems is satisfying and rewarding, and if you can make a living at it, you can’t ask for a better career.”
