The Story of DCE

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About David Carroll Electronics From 1985 until 1998, I ran David Carroll Electronics, a melting pot of great talent and interesting projects. But first, a photo history: (click images for larger photo)
	1785 4th street, our first location	Here's where our wiring standards REALLY started, with my first ever employee, and possibly one of the best wiring guys ever, (not to mention a really nice guy) Phil Porter, in my basement in Mill Valley in 1980. Isn't that a nice patch bay harness?
	Jason, Phil and Christian making Skywalker cables	David Nahman-Ramos, DC, and Gary Schneider at DCE's own AES booth in 1992.
	Phil, Christian, and Rosie hard at work at 4th street	Ralph was not only one of the most sincere people in the company, he did a mean Jimi Hendrix impression.
	Jason Loeks feeling punchy at the back of a patchbay rack built for Mills College computer music dept.	Keith Pintner and Jeff Payne pulling cable at Saul Zaentz Film Center
We started with installing audio recording studios and rapidly moved to film post houses, radio and television broadcast facilities, corporate media production, government, and A/V jobs. Our first big job, in 1988, was as primary audio systems integrator at George Lucas’ Skywalker Ranch where we built the first dubbing stages and machine rooms. Over the years, we continued to land high profile, trend setting projects such as the US Senate and Sony Music Studios. DCE eventually encompassed several operating divisions, but the core was engineering and installation. In that area, and especially in audio, DCE walked on water. We established a quality standard that is legendary in the industry. We did it through a combination of practices. We hired young people with aptitude. They would spend at least 6 months on the shop floor in fabrication before they would have an opportunity to move into the field. In the shop, they would learn tooling, cable handling, preparation and termination, and testing. They would also have an opportunity to work on rack build-up. Later, our shop foreman Kevin Wilhelm developed a 6 week training internship program with a complete curriculum and dedicated materials and resources. The result was that we always staffed our jobs with full time employees. Graduates of the “DCE school of wiring” never had any trouble finding work and we spawned more than a few careers. We had very low turnover in engineering and so had consistent development of engineering work flow and standards. I always insisted on as much detail from engineering as possible. It was my goal to produce fabrication documentation which is totally non-ambiguous and complete, to avoid misunderstandings in the field. To that end we developed an elaborate system of wiring standards (how to prepare cable for termination and make connections) and spent a lot of time integrating them into the work flow processes. We even developed an automatic cable tester that would scan an entire assembly and compare the resulting net with a table generated from manufacturing data. If there ever were a problem with a job, DCE would bend over backwards to correct it at no additional cost to the customer. DCE was really cooking in the years between 1988 and 1996. A string of important jobs shot us into industry awareness, starting with Skywalker and including Sony Music and the U.S. Senate. So what happened? Unfortunate management decisions took us down in 1998, and I was forced to start over. DCE Alumni Picture gallery (hey DCE'ers... send me more pix and I'll put 'em up here! -DC) Management: David Carroll, Jay Kahn, Ken McKean, Karyn Noel, Joni Anderson, Max Rossmassler Engineering/Supervisors Stephen Sutter, Michael Stocker, Gary Schneider, David Nahman-Ramos, Kelly Quan, Dennis Rice, Carlos Raven, Steven Young, Rob Perry, Kieth Pintner, Howie Plitsch, Tim McGovern, Christian Stauduhar Administration: Debbie McCarty, Tony Walton, Susan McKenna, Violet Stallworth, James St. John, Carolyn E. Green, Kari Crandall, Philip Hersey, George Emerson, Tomiko Patton Rosie: Rosie (Jeanne) Alexander-Webb. For those of you who don't know Rosie, she gets her own category because for many (most?) of our customers, as well as friends and staff, Rosie was the face of the company. She was one of my very first hires and was the "glue" for DCE during her 14 year tenure. She developed and kept alive many of our most important customer relationships through her inimitable, southern bred friendliness. Operations/Fab/Installation Kevin Wilhelm, Kirsten McCarthy, Ian Turner, Mark Edens, Karen Alvarado, Steven Hunt, Nick Givogri, Ann Dentel, Jennifer C. Smitt, Steven E. Schultz, Quinton Jackson, Randy Gee, Michelle Tromerhauser, Steve Warner, Meghan Candido, Luis Manuela, Edward Evans, Mark Clendinning, Chris Barron, Jenifer Mercado, Donald Norwood, Craig Holbrook, Raymundo Silva, Alicia Candido, Richard Looper, Gary Koester, Jason Loeks, Gina Rincon, Guillermo Videla, Frank Richter, Jeffery Wishard, Chris Parks, David Robinson, Philip Porter, Marylin Luna, Daniel Soogian, Daniel Callaghan, Najibullah Mujadiddi, Chris J. Wilhelm, Brian J. Lott, Francisco Giovanelli, DeJauna Joseph, Jennifer Williams, Ismael Rivera, Raymond Rogers, Jeffery Riedmiller, Johnathan Stauduhar, Kay Hopper, Matt Selock, Jeff Mann, Cass Laziure, Nicho Ybarra, Anna Davis, Tony Eckert, Jeff Payne Sales Dept. Dave Van Hoy, Randall Sanderson, Amy Prigozen, Steve Smulian, Mike Sugar, Charlie Lamm, Eddie Rogers, Bill Thompson Signal Transport Lee Pomerantz, Rosie Alexander DCE in the Trades: Skywalker Ranch article Mix Magazine [2.3MB PDF file] Skywalker Ranch - Belden Application Report. [1MB PDF file] Pro Sound News profile on DC