Hello World! Welcome back to Let's Talk...Audio. Remember to join us on Discord!

This interview starts with an intro from Chance Sampson. He first got into AV as a guitarist who wanted to record his music. He recorded on standalone recorders like the Tascam.

Later he joined the high school show choir as a guitarist. Show choir would use two old Yamaha 16 channel digital consoles, daisy-chained in some strange manner. He ended up trouble shooting and learning how to set up their system better.

He went to the Art Institute in Austin for a degree in Audio Production. The school would let him take their gear off campus and throw pop punk shows at skate parks. After graduation he worked at Guitar Center, before getting on with the Renaissance Austin Hotel's AV team, doing conferences and things of that nature. From there he went into corporate audio installation work, building a team and becoming an operations manager.

Chance and Tangela both have been substitute FoH engineers for their friend Tim Weaver (who will be in an upcoming episode). He later worked for WeWork's division in Dallas.

Most recently he's been working in retail AV installation, so doing installs in department stores and such.

As a result of seeing all these things, he's developed an appreciation for the diversity of vertical AV product lines, depending on application.

He will be working for Peloton's AV in their Dallas office as of the week following this interview.

The past year and a half has been so long and crazy, Tangela and Chance had to look up just when exactly it was Colby Bryant died.

Chance's work ethic has been partly centered around finding problems to fix, without waiting for customers/clients/personnel to find them. This has been a source of career elevation as well as some small amount of coworker conflict.

"I really had every intention of not getting into stuff at WeWork ... because I wanna just be some schmuck that goes to work. It's really hard."

Tangela says "... leaning into your natural skills and natural personality ... A lot of times people don't lean into who they are naturally..."

Chance recognizes he's seen more than a few rare opportunities including the monetary compensation for his time at WeWork.

What he likes about AV more than anything is the problem solving and system design aspects. Getting to be in the field installing things and using that to inform design has been a pleasure for Chance as well.

Chance and Tangela talk about transferable skills, and using them in different contexts. Recognizing how skills transfer is key to recognizing opportunities.

They follow up by talking about bringing up/mentoring/handing opportunities to people new to a domain. Chance recalls that one of his previous jobs hired him because he was new to that particular area of audio but had the "go get 'em attitude" towards the work.

The choice to leave Austin for Dallas came about after the church Chance and Tangela attended/worked audio for, organized a focus group to help members think about their priorities and aspirations. A lot of good things lined up for Chance's family after that focus group, towards their goal of moving to Dallas.

Chance: "I just had a mustache at the time. I looked like a fucking idiot. And, they still hired me ..."

Tangela: "I wanna know what it was like for you ... transitioning into these more corporate jobs, how did you manage what all you were will to do with family and what all you were willing to put your family through for your dreams and your careers?"

Chance: "That's a good ass question dude ... I more or less chose my wife over that stuff"

Chance: "We lived in the coolest city ever and never did anything, cuz we were always broke!"

Chance and his wife have been together for 13 years and married