When NASA launches the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) in the fall of 2008, technology supplied by Audio Video Resources (AVR) will help them achieve key objectives of their mission: (1) Select a safe landing site on the Moon for future robotic and human missions, and (2) identify areas of permanent shadow and permanent or near-permanent illumination.
Last year, AVR provided mission-critical AV support for the LRO to Arizona State University and the Goddard Space Flight Center. The team needed to be able to broadcast high-resolution images from the Moon, so AVR researched different solutions, then built a custom display control room that allows many scientists to simultaneously share and view images of the highest possible resolution. Per-pixel resolution down to 0.5 meters in size was required to identify meter-size objects in order to increase the accuracy of scientific assessments and to help avoid the problem that Apollo 15 had when it unintentionally landed in a small crater in 1971.
“Our greatest strength as a company is in the customized design and implementation of special projects,” notes company CEO Mark Temen. “We don’t do cookie cutter jobs.”
Based in Phoenix, AVR is a full-service provider of professional and industrial AV and communication products, services, and systems. Sixty employees strong, today their core markets are education, worship, government and military, broadcast TV, hospitality, courthouses, and commercial businesses. However, AVR began as a studio in 1947, recording songs from such musicians as Duane Eddy, Wayne Newton, and Alice Cooper. Back then, they’d cut vinyl discs with a record lathe and send them to the presser. “When the music scene moved to Nashville and LA, lots of recording companies closed up shop,” Temen explains. “However, we broadened our focus, and last year we celebrated our sixtieth anniversary.”
Temen attributes the company’s sixty-one years in business to their willingness to continually improve their performance in sales, design, installation, and integration. The company frequently surveys clients, then pinpoints areas for improvement. They also take advantage of their membership in PSNI, sharing information about regional and national best practices and events that occur in the industry. Says Temen, “It’s wonderful to be able to pick up the phone and talk candidly about daily issues with CEOs who are not in our competitive area. Our ability to draw upon resources nationwide offers a huge benefit to our clients.”
AVR’s overall goal is to deliver value to their clients through the knowledge that they possess rather than through the products they sell. Over seventy-five percent of their technical, service, and sales staff hold InfoComm AVolution Certified Technology Specialists (CTS) credentials, enabling AVR to achieve gold-level certification in InfoComm’s Certified AudioVisual Solutions Provider (CAVSP) Program. “Our employees are our most valuable asset,” Temen notes. “Customer satisfaction is the cornerstone of our success, so hiring and retaining the most talented, most educated, most resourceful people is our number one priority.” 
