Commercial Integrator March 2023 - 25

personal to Way, who recalls, in the early
days of HETMA, having been " called out "
online for putting together a steering committee
entirely composed of middle-aged
white guys. " It was a blind spot, and we
were called out for it, " he acknowledges.
" At that point, it really hit me: We need to
make change. " But it wasn't merely about
transforming HETMA's own composition;
it was about transforming the community.
" We did something substantial and created
change in the industry, " Way says with
evident pride.
Making a Difference
For HETMA leadership, there is no greater
acid test than whether an initiative truly
would make a difference in people's lives.
Speaking of Prism, Way recalls, " The very
first conversation that I had, talking to Joé
Lloyd, was, 'I want to do this, but it has to
be substantial. It can't just be a press release.
We need to do something that can
actually take someone's career and make it
better.' " Maher-Moran seconds that vision.
" It's easy to pay lip service and be like, 'Oh
yeah. We're going to do something,' " she
says. " But it's amazing to be part of an organization
that is actually doing something
to help make a difference. " And DEI, while
absolutely critical, isn't the only advocacy
area that HETMA touches.
In late 2022, HETMA announced a
partnership with Sustainability in AV (SAVe)
to expand sustainability initiatives through
higher-education institutions across the
U.S. Maher-Moran says that, during an
initial meeting with Christina DeBono,
founder and president of SAVe, HETMA
really dug into the 2030 Sustainable Development
Goals (SDGs) and was immediately
enthusiastic. " When we looked at
each of the goals, there were little things in
there that just aligned so well with higher
ed, " Maher-Moran adds. HETMA knew
it could increase public familiarity with
SDGs and move forward via established
programs. One such program, called
SAVe a Second Life, encourages the repair,
reuse, repurposing, recycling and proper
disposal of AV equipment. Here, HETMA
saw the benefit in helping smaller schools
and organizations, which don't have
large budgets, get access to technology
they'd otherwise never have. " It's giving
commercialintegrator.com
those pieces of equipment a second life,
instead of having them sitting in a landfill, "
Maher-Moran explains.
SAVe certification training is a powerful
method of advancing the goals of
increasing the visibility of the SDGs and,
in so doing, protecting our planet. Thus,
Way, director of learning environments
at the University of Southern California
(USC), seized the opportunity to host the
first higher-education SAVe certification
training session in November. While USC
is the very first university certified by SAVe,
it certainly won't be the last. " We hope to
increase that number and get a lot of our
member schools certified, so that we can
help that little bit more with sustainability
efforts, " Maher-Moran says. Way sets
forth a vision he dubs " train the trainer, "
where he hopes SAVe can certify learning
institutions' own trainers to then go out
and certify other schools. Much as with
technology, Way is thinking about how to
scale this. " You take this across a vertical...
think how much impact we can have, " he
says, a smile coming across his face.
Building Community
At its heart, HETMA is a community
of technology professionals, and that
tight-knittedness extends to the digital
world. Recently, the organization opened
up its online community to corporate
partners, thus broadening opportunities
to dialogue with stakeholders to create exceptional
education experiences. Within
the larger overall ecosystem, there are
roughly 30 subcommunities, including
forums for tech talk, troubleshooting, job
openings and making regional connections.
Although segmented-off areas
remain for higher-ed professionals only,
they sit in parallel with open areas where
vendors can freely participate. " This is
just on fire, " Way enthuses, describing
the platform for having real conversations
in an enclosed community as being like
" Facebook on steroids. "
What's more, this year, HETMA will
launch lunch-and-learn sessions as well as
other community-based education opportunities.
Maher-Moran counterposes this
positively to " traditional " integrator and
vendor interaction, which involves a few
minutes at trade shows and then follow-up
'I've got standard
classrooms, but
I've also got a movie
theater, a fully
functioning
courtroom, active
learning classrooms
and lab spaces, all of
which are part of that
AV ecosphere.'
- BC Hatchett,
co-founder and board
member emeritus,
HETMA
email blasts. " We're trying to warm it up
a little bit, " she explains. " Be able to have
lunch-and-learns, and then have conversations
happen right there. " Clearly, that
recipe is working; during our interview, the
community had doubled in size in 17 days.
As you read these words, these numbers
will likely be vastly larger.
Commercial Integrator Expo
With Commercial Integrator's corporate
parent, Emerald, launching Commercial
Integrator Expo this year, HETMA will serve
as an official education partner, which Way
describes as, " Taking education from our
backend and bringing that out into the
world. " Hatchett is running point on that
initiative, and he describes the first year
as an ideal opportunity to find common
MARCH 2023 Commercial Integrator 25
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Commercial Integrator March 2023

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