We believe that the people of Transparent are our greatest asset. The performance of our products, their legendary build quality, and Transparent’s industry-leading customer service and dealer training all come from the quality of our staff. To learn about Transparent's people and their roles, select from these departments:
FOUNDERS
MANAGEMENT TEAM
SALES
GRAPHIC DESIGN AND WEB
INDUSTRIAL DESIGN
CUSTOM LABORATORY
ASSEMBLY TEAM
FOUNDERS
Karen Sumner
As Transparent's president and a founder, Karen provides the overall direction of the company's product development and sales and marketing programs. She also heads up Transparent's creative teams in the areas of industrial design, packaging, graphics, and web development. As a musician and loyal patron of symphony, concert, and opera associations in Maine and Florida, she constantly strives to keep her musical perspective in tune. She is instrumental as the final set of "ears" on the Transparent listening panel.
Jack Sumner
Jack is a founder and Transparent's CFO and head of design and engineering. As an accomplished musician with a physics degree, he approaches design from more of a scientific discovery perspective than a pure engineering model. The Transparent design model is based upon filter theory and is supported by thousands of hours of observation through listening under controlled circumstances, quantification of these observations through measurement and description, and finally the consistent replication of results in the form of products that perform as intended. Jack's tireless focus and concentration to develop products that achieve new levels of musical realism have resulted in the development of every landmark product Transparent has produced over the past 28 years. Jack and Karen go to the same symphony, concert, and opera performances, and they spend many hours listening to music for pleasure and for product development in their new in-home music and film studio
Carl Smith
As a Transparent founder, Carl has a strong influence on Transparent's musical perspective and company culture. A passionate musicologist, Carl has amassed significant archival collections in the jazz and classical genres. He teaches music exploration courses and has written a book about jazz pianist Bud Powell entitled Bouncing with Bud. Some of his unauthorized recordings of Sonny Rollins' most phenomenal concert performances have recently been released with Rollins’ full support in a new CD Sonny Rollins Road Shows, Vol. 1. Carl came to Transparent after a career as a very successful attorney. Transparent became the fulfillment of his desire to pursue his passion for music and audio and a vehicle to apply his innate engineering abilities in the form of Transparent product fabrication and assembly. Carl's sensitivity and wisdom in working with Transparent's people and many suppliers have been key to Transparent’s corporate culture of teamwork and positive spirit.
MANAGEMENT TEAM Josh Clark
Josh joined Transparent in 1997 immediately after graduating from Bates college as a music major with a strong physics course load. He has grown from having an interdepartmental support role to a leadership position at Transparent. Josh has become a key design innovator and contributor to the design team and the listening panel, and he oversees every aspect of product development. His ability to encourage cooperation and team work is key to Transparent's many departments meshing together and operating smoothly. As an accomplished musician and a devoted attendee of live music performances, Josh is a welcome extension to Transparent's founding principle of creating products that are closest to the music.
Sabrina Schultz
Sabrina joined Transparent in 2001 as our accounting manager. She brings a love of numbers, finance, and people to her role at Transparent. She's astute at understanding what the numbers mean, both coming and going, and she has a winning way of keeping everyone on the right track. Her way of encouraging cooperation and goodwill with every Transparent employee, supplier, and customer is a key component to Transparent's ongoing success.
David Schultz
David joined Transparent in 2005 as sales manager. David has many years of experience selling different kinds of products and supervising sales teams. Prior to joining Transparent, David was a sales manager with Sony's Professional division. David heads up the sales team and develops sales strategies with the team and implementation plans for Transparent's dealer sales training and promotional programs. David is an active member of the sales team and serves Transparent's dealers throughout the United States and distributors in Asia.
Amy Farwell
Amy joined Transparent in 1997. She manages Transparent's inventory to make sure it stays in perfect balance. This is no small task with the tens of thousands of different parts from different suppliers, hundreds of miles of cable, and the tons of packaging that are required to keep Transparent running smoothly. She coordinates her inventory responsibilities with Roxanne. Amy also coordinates Transparent's export business, manages marketing communications, and assists with all aspects of sales support.
Lisa Terroni
Lisa supervises the custom laboratory. She's worked at Transparent since 1987. She knows how to make every Transparent product, and she's a wizard when it comes to making our products fit new applications. She is an excellent trainer for new members of the assembly team or to help existing assemblers learn how to make new products. She regularly gives termination and assembly courses to dealers and their staff who visit the Transparent facility.
Roxanne Meserve
Roxanne, a member of the Transparent team since 1985, keeps the ever expanding Transparent warehouse organized, assigns work to the Transparent assembly team, and is responsible for quality control. Roxanne started with Transparent on the assembly team and knows all aspects of all Transparent production. She's a wizard at organizing and preparing export shipments which can amount to thousands of items.
SALES Brad O'Toole, Rich Curole, and Demos Dadiotes
Brad, Rich, and Demos work with David to discuss strategy, projects, and the implementation of Transparent's dealer sales training and promotional programs. Brad travels throughout the US and Europe to help our dealers successfully adopt the Transparent product line and is an important contributor to Transparent's marketing programs. Rich travels throughout the United States and Canada. Demos assists with all aspects of sales and technical support. He is also an accomplished photographer of Transparent products. His photographs appear regularly on Transparent's website and in dealer newsletters.
GRAPHIC DESIGN AND WEB Bruce Kennett and Peter Cole
Bruce is Transparent's artistic conscience and insures that every printed and web communication achieves an ever evolving but consistently elegant and pure presentation that is uniquely Transparent's. Peter is a web genius, capable of transforming sophisticated graphic presentations into language a computer can understand.
INDUSTRIAL DESIGN Kevin Midgley
Kevin has a fine arts degree and is an accomplished songwriter and musician. He started on the assembly team with Transparent more than a decade ago. A few years after joining the Transparent team, he showed his ability to put together beautiful, reliable, and unique products in Transparent's custom laboratory. Several years ago he joined Karen and Josh helping to design the look and layout of Transparent's products. He's skilled at CAD design, has a great eye, and understands fully the high level of fit and finish every Transparent product requires. Because Transparent buys very few ready-made parts, every aspect of every Transparent product needs to be physically designed and fabricated to custom specifications.
CUSTOM LABORATORY Tim Wilson and Rebekah Libby
Transparent's custom lab is the backbone of Transparent's ability to provide world-class service to our customers. If our dealers need special terminations, cabling harnesses, custom power connectors, or anything else they can dream of, Transparent's custom lab is there to get it done reliably, fast, and beautifully finished. Lisa supervises the custom lab. Tim has worked for Transparent since 1997, and his craft and creativity show on every custom project he tackles. Rebekah has been working for Transparent for a few years now, and she's learning every trick of the trade.
ASSEMBLY TEAM Transparent's key assembly team of technicians have combined experience crafting Transparent's products of well over 100 years! Ralph and Betty Hamm (Amy's mom and dad) have been assembling Transparent's products since 1985. They specialize in Reference Series products, OPUS, and PowerIsolator products. Mike, Frank, Karen Frazier, Mark, Beth, Karen Wilson, Gina, and Larry add up to more than 100 years of experience alone, and they know Transparent products inside and out. Although they each have their favorite products, they constantly rotate the types of Transparent products they assemble to keep their jobs interesting and to avoid repetitive motion injuries. Transparent's core assemblers are a highly creative group, many of whom are active musicians and artists. In addition to this group of expert technicians, Transparent employs a number of Maine-based assemblers to help keep up with the growing demand for entry level Transparent products.
As Transparent's president and a founder, Karen provides the overall direction of the company's product development and sales and marketing programs. She also heads up Transparent's creative teams in the areas of industrial design, packaging, graphics, and web development. As a musician and loyal patron of symphony, concert, and opera associations in Maine and Florida, she constantly strives to keep her musical perspective in tune. She is instrumental as the final set of "ears" on the Transparent listening panel.
Jack Sumner
Jack is a founder and Transparent's CFO and head of design and engineering. As an accomplished musician with a physics degree, he approaches design from more of a scientific discovery perspective than a pure engineering model. The Transparent design model is based upon filter theory and is supported by thousands of hours of observation through listening under controlled circumstances, quantification of these observations through measurement and description, and finally the consistent replication of results in the form of products that perform as intended. Jack's tireless focus and concentration to develop products that achieve new levels of musical realism have resulted in the development of every landmark product Transparent has produced over the past 28 years. Jack and Karen go to the same symphony, concert, and opera performances, and they spend many hours listening to music for pleasure and for product development in their new in-home music and film studio
Carl Smith
As a Transparent founder, Carl has a strong influence on Transparent's musical perspective and company culture. A passionate musicologist, Carl has amassed significant archival collections in the jazz and classical genres. He teaches music exploration courses and has written a book about jazz pianist Bud Powell entitled Bouncing with Bud. Some of his unauthorized recordings of Sonny Rollins' most phenomenal concert performances have recently been released with Rollins’ full support in a new CD Sonny Rollins Road Shows, Vol. 1. Carl came to Transparent after a career as a very successful attorney. Transparent became the fulfillment of his desire to pursue his passion for music and audio and a vehicle to apply his innate engineering abilities in the form of Transparent product fabrication and assembly. Carl's sensitivity and wisdom in working with Transparent's people and many suppliers have been key to Transparent’s corporate culture of teamwork and positive spirit.
MANAGEMENT TEAM Josh Clark
Josh joined Transparent in 1997 immediately after graduating from Bates college as a music major with a strong physics course load. He has grown from having an interdepartmental support role to a leadership position at Transparent. Josh has become a key design innovator and contributor to the design team and the listening panel, and he oversees every aspect of product development. His ability to encourage cooperation and team work is key to Transparent's many departments meshing together and operating smoothly. As an accomplished musician and a devoted attendee of live music performances, Josh is a welcome extension to Transparent's founding principle of creating products that are closest to the music.
Sabrina Schultz
Sabrina joined Transparent in 2001 as our accounting manager. She brings a love of numbers, finance, and people to her role at Transparent. She's astute at understanding what the numbers mean, both coming and going, and she has a winning way of keeping everyone on the right track. Her way of encouraging cooperation and goodwill with every Transparent employee, supplier, and customer is a key component to Transparent's ongoing success.
David Schultz
David joined Transparent in 2005 as sales manager. David has many years of experience selling different kinds of products and supervising sales teams. Prior to joining Transparent, David was a sales manager with Sony's Professional division. David heads up the sales team and develops sales strategies with the team and implementation plans for Transparent's dealer sales training and promotional programs. David is an active member of the sales team and serves Transparent's dealers throughout the United States and distributors in Asia.
Amy Farwell
Amy joined Transparent in 1997. She manages Transparent's inventory to make sure it stays in perfect balance. This is no small task with the tens of thousands of different parts from different suppliers, hundreds of miles of cable, and the tons of packaging that are required to keep Transparent running smoothly. She coordinates her inventory responsibilities with Roxanne. Amy also coordinates Transparent's export business, manages marketing communications, and assists with all aspects of sales support.
Lisa Terroni
Lisa supervises the custom laboratory. She's worked at Transparent since 1987. She knows how to make every Transparent product, and she's a wizard when it comes to making our products fit new applications. She is an excellent trainer for new members of the assembly team or to help existing assemblers learn how to make new products. She regularly gives termination and assembly courses to dealers and their staff who visit the Transparent facility.
Roxanne Meserve
Roxanne, a member of the Transparent team since 1985, keeps the ever expanding Transparent warehouse organized, assigns work to the Transparent assembly team, and is responsible for quality control. Roxanne started with Transparent on the assembly team and knows all aspects of all Transparent production. She's a wizard at organizing and preparing export shipments which can amount to thousands of items.
SALES Brad O'Toole, Rich Curole, and Demos Dadiotes
Brad, Rich, and Demos work with David to discuss strategy, projects, and the implementation of Transparent's dealer sales training and promotional programs. Brad travels throughout the US and Europe to help our dealers successfully adopt the Transparent product line and is an important contributor to Transparent's marketing programs. Rich travels throughout the United States and Canada. Demos assists with all aspects of sales and technical support. He is also an accomplished photographer of Transparent products. His photographs appear regularly on Transparent's website and in dealer newsletters.
GRAPHIC DESIGN AND WEB Bruce Kennett and Peter Cole
Bruce is Transparent's artistic conscience and insures that every printed and web communication achieves an ever evolving but consistently elegant and pure presentation that is uniquely Transparent's. Peter is a web genius, capable of transforming sophisticated graphic presentations into language a computer can understand.
INDUSTRIAL DESIGN Kevin Midgley
Kevin has a fine arts degree and is an accomplished songwriter and musician. He started on the assembly team with Transparent more than a decade ago. A few years after joining the Transparent team, he showed his ability to put together beautiful, reliable, and unique products in Transparent's custom laboratory. Several years ago he joined Karen and Josh helping to design the look and layout of Transparent's products. He's skilled at CAD design, has a great eye, and understands fully the high level of fit and finish every Transparent product requires. Because Transparent buys very few ready-made parts, every aspect of every Transparent product needs to be physically designed and fabricated to custom specifications.
CUSTOM LABORATORY Tim Wilson and Rebekah Libby
Transparent's custom lab is the backbone of Transparent's ability to provide world-class service to our customers. If our dealers need special terminations, cabling harnesses, custom power connectors, or anything else they can dream of, Transparent's custom lab is there to get it done reliably, fast, and beautifully finished. Lisa supervises the custom lab. Tim has worked for Transparent since 1997, and his craft and creativity show on every custom project he tackles. Rebekah has been working for Transparent for a few years now, and she's learning every trick of the trade.
ASSEMBLY TEAM Transparent's key assembly team of technicians have combined experience crafting Transparent's products of well over 100 years! Ralph and Betty Hamm (Amy's mom and dad) have been assembling Transparent's products since 1985. They specialize in Reference Series products, OPUS, and PowerIsolator products. Mike, Frank, Karen Frazier, Mark, Beth, Karen Wilson, Gina, and Larry add up to more than 100 years of experience alone, and they know Transparent products inside and out. Although they each have their favorite products, they constantly rotate the types of Transparent products they assemble to keep their jobs interesting and to avoid repetitive motion injuries. Transparent's core assemblers are a highly creative group, many of whom are active musicians and artists. In addition to this group of expert technicians, Transparent employs a number of Maine-based assemblers to help keep up with the growing demand for entry level Transparent products.