His professional life started out as an apprentice for William Culhane (an Ousley Stanley pupil), Bill Robinson, and R.O. Rushton in Altos de Chavon, Dominican Republic. Moved to New York in 1984 where he trained with Hirotsogu Aoki in real time special effects, did FOH for local bands in CBGBs, the Ritz, and countless pubs, bars, and clubs. Moved to Los Angeles in 1988 and became the Secretary of the AES (Audio Engineering Society) where he had the honor of meeting and working with such Audio luminaries as Allen Byers, Les Harrison, Bob Burton, Deane Jensen, Bill Whitlock, Marshall Buck, Tomlinson Holman and many others. Moved to Florida in November 1997 and has been building ConnTech Incorporated ever since.
Senior Field Supervisor,
Andy and Jan met while helping a friend build a PA system for a church in January 2010. Andy's first project with ConnTech Inc. was the Broadcast and A/V System installation for The New World Symphony in South Beach, after that he continued as the second half of the ConnTech team for project after successful project. This harmonious partnership has continued through installations with companies like PCS (Professional Communications Systems), BIG (Broadcast International Group), M/BITS (Media/Broadcast Integration and Technical Services), Arthur/Lambert, Walton Management, ITS (Integration Technology Services), TIBSG (Technical Innovations Broadcast Solutions Group, TechnoSystems, Diversified and many more. These companies hire ConnTech Incorporated to implement their designs and staff their projects. Andy is of Puerto Rican descent and fluently bilingual.
Lead Installer,
Edgar started with the Company at the beginning of July 2015 on the pre-wire for A-34, better known as The Harmony of the Seas, a Royal Caribbean Cruises ship whose Broadcast Center, Main Theater, and Studio B were designed and built by TechnoSystems. I took advantage of my presence during the whole installation to bring in Edgar and treat him like an apprentice for a couple of months. It seems to have worked. After the conclusion of that installation he migrated to a big project in Univision headed by Diversified, one of the big installation companies that hire us as subcontractors to fulfill their designs. They liked his work and his attitude and hired him for several other travelling projects in different States. At the moment he is again staffing as an installer for Diversified in Univision. Edgar is of Venezuelan descent, he is fluent in Spanish and becoming rapidly fluent in English.
Lead Installer,
This is TJ. He started with us as an apprentice at the beginning of March 2015. He is also a long time member of our crew but his apprenticeship did not start with Jan like many others. He started with Andy Mercado and Dorianne Tholenaar at Univision. After finishing that first project which lasted about two years, TJ went on to do travelling projects with Diversified, two shipyard trips to work on the Harmony of the Seas and the Symphony of the Seas in Saint Nazaire, France with TechnoSystems, and various trips to the Caribbean (Haiti, Panama, Trinidad, and Aruba). TJ has also received certifications in fiber optics terminations.
Installer and Jan's current apprentice,
Ana Tholenaar is the penultimate of Jan's four daughters. She is one of the two newest additions to ConnTech Incorporated. She is being trained not only to rig and gang racks, mount equipment, cut-label-pull-run-terminate wire, and dress racks, but also to run the warehouse, manage the e-commerce shop, and operate ConnTech incorporated. Ana is an artist and a music student. She finished highschool in 2017, moved to The Netherlands in 2018, and then to Germany the same year to study Film and Video Music Production. She returned to Florida for the summer of 2020 and decided to continue the same trajectory closer to her family.
Books Keeper - Financial Administrator,
Andrea is the youngest of Jan's four daughters. She is the second of the two newest additions to the company. She is not being trained locally and is not a current resident of the U.S. Andrea lives in Maastricht NL, and attends Maastricht Zuid University. She belongs to the Faculty of Hotel Administration and her major is in Culinary Arts. Andrea's pursuit of knowledge in the areas of Business Administration and Finances will give her a firm understanding of how to take ConnTech incorporated into the future, and how to make sure that the decisions taken for the wellbeing of the company are the correct ones.
