“Everyone needs an Amos!”— my wife, who is right
Paid independent inspection · flat fees, no commissions

Meeting rooms that just work.

I inspect one of your real meetings — remotely or in the room — and hand you an independent verdict you can act on this week. Not a free consultation. Not a design/build quote. I don’t profit from the equipment decision.

Book an inspection → How it works ↓
Founding-client rate: first five inspections at $1,500 ↓
CTS-certified Hundreds of rooms built over 13 years Sold the company
The problem

Your rooms were signed off years ago.
Nobody’s looked under the hood since.

The mic cuts out. Remote people feel like second-class citizens. And every meeting starts with ten minutes of “can you hear us now?”

An integrator installed it, got the sign-off, and moved on. What’s left is a room that technically works and practically doesn’t — and no one whose job it is to say why.

And the payroll math is only half of it. When rooms just work, your people put their attention on the job instead of the technology — and they trust video enough to fly less. That’s a competitive edge for the company and evenings at home for your people. I’ve watched both happen at companies whose rooms I built.

$50,000+per year, in wasted labor
A 10-person meeting: $200–300/hour in salaries.
5 meetings a day × 30% lost to tech friction.
→ roughly $50k+ a year walking out the door.
You don’t have an AV problem. You have a payroll leak.
Why paid beats free
Every free assessment comes with someone who wants to sell you a $50,000 system. My fee is flat and I don’t profit from the equipment decision — so the verdict is built to be right, not to win an install.
— the whole business model, in one sentence
free estimate

The contractor’s angle

A free AV estimate is free because he wants the job. The number is shaped by what he’s hoping to install.

paid inspection

The inspector’s angle

You pay me a flat fee for judgment. No hardware margin, no referral fees from manufacturers, no partner commissions riding on the answer.

the difference

Whose side the number is on

One verdict is built to win your business. The other is built to be right. You already know which one you’ve been getting.

≈70% of inspections end with: “you’re fine — here’s what to fix and who to call.” The rest get a prescription. Nobody gets a pitch.
What I look at

Five lenses, in order.
The order is the point.

Each one only matters if the one above it holds. Reliability first — the best features don’t exist on a system that’s down.

1

Reliability

If it’s not reliable, nothing else on this list matters. This is the floor everything stands on.

2

Ease of use

A feature that the typical person in the room can’t operate doesn’t exist. Simplicity is a feature.

3

Speed to start

You should be in your meeting within 5 seconds, 99% of the time. Anything slower is friction you pay for in every meeting, forever.

4

Meeting transparency

Everyone seen and heard, both directions — visually and acoustically. The remote half of the room is a first-class citizen or it isn’t.

5

Room health newest lens

Air quality and cognitive load in a packed boardroom. Nobody talks about CO₂ because there’s no hardware margin in it — so I notice things vendors have no incentive to notice.

I observe and refer. I don’t certify air.

Read it top to bottom — that’s the diagnosis order. We don’t tune transparency on a room that reboots twice a day.

Start here

One inspection. One real meeting.
A verdict you can act on this week.

The front door

Meeting-Room Reliability Inspection

By the end you’ll know what’s failing, why, what it’s costing you, and whether it’s worth fixing — in writing, the same day.

Remote — nationwide $1,500–2,500

I join one of your real meetings and experience your room exactly the way your far end does.

On-site — by arrangement $2,500–3,500

Same inspection, in your building — for executive-room stakes or when the politics need a person present.

Founding-client rate First five inspections at $1,500 — I’m collecting launch reference cases. List price after, and there will never be a coupon: flat, published fees are part of the independence.
    // what happens
  1. I sit in on a real meeting — not a demo. Real users, real agenda, real failures.
  2. Your IT lead walks me through the room. A phone camera works fine; no prep required.
  3. We talk through how the room actually operates on a scheduled follow-up call — the gaps live here.
  4. You get the Room Reliability Snapshot: 1–2 pages — what it’s costing you in dollars, top risks, quick wins, ranked next actions, and a go/no-go verdict.

House rule: I never troubleshoot live. Observe, document, debrief.

Book an inspection → Where it can lead ↓
Where it leads

Prescribed from the findings.
Never pitched.

Prices on the wall, where an honest business keeps them. But nothing below gets sold cold — the inspection decides what, if anything, comes next.

Deep diveFull day

Room Systems Audit

$5,000

Your team comes out smarter than the people who installed it.

When the inspection finds systemic trouble, we baseline the whole footprint: every room, with your IT lead beside me — audio paths, network, configuration versus intent — explained aloud as I go.

You walk away withPrioritized findings across every room, and an IT team that watched the diagnosis happen.
Deep dive1–2 days

IT Empowerment Intensive

$9,500 – $15,000

The $250/hour integrator ticket goes away.

I embed with your IT department and teach what integrators never leave behind — your people drive, I coach side by side with them, on your systems.

Curriculum: Dante routing · NDI · VLAN separation & AV network design · beamforming mic theory & tuning · DSP fundamentals · Q-SYS system logic · a troubleshooting methodology. Access verified first — if your integrator locked you out of your own system, getting you back in is step one (and a service in itself).
You walk away withA team that owns those rooms. No service contract, no dependency.
Before you signAsync

Quote Interrogation

$1,000 – $1,500

Money kept — before the signature, not after the install.

You’re holding a $40–75K meeting-room quote. I’ll tell you what to demand before signing, which assumptions will bite at install, and how the number sits against my own pricing history across hundreds of rooms.

You walk away withA fixed quote-risk memo: the hidden assumptions, the questions to ask, and a fair-range benchmark.
Ongoing
Fractional avCTOMonthly

Fractional avCTO

$2,500 – $5,000/mo

Rooms that just work — and stay that way.

Ongoing access to a 20-year AV pro, async: room standards, quote and design review, acceptance checklists, “what should IT own vs. the integrator,” one scheduled monthly call. I’m not your AV help desk — I’m the person who keeps your rooms from becoming expensive tribal knowledge. And when your footprint justifies a full-time hire, I’ll say so and help you hire them.

You walk away withStandards, second opinions, and someone accountable for the judgment — without the payroll.
Bespoke: campus rollouts, the one room that’s never worked, AV standards for future buildouts.Scoped together, project by project.

↳ One door in: the inspection. Everything else on this wall is a prescription — or it doesn’t happen.

Credentials

The most qualified AV person you can get in a room — whose fee doesn’t care what you buy.

CTS-certified, Q-SYS programming certified, and I built, ran, and sold an AV integration company over 13 years — hundreds of video conferencing rooms, every one designed on the same three priorities, in order: reliability, ease of use, features.

AVIXACTSCertified Technology Specialist
ProgrammingQ-SYSAudio DSP platform, certified
ControlCrestronInstalled dozens of systems
AudioShure MXABeamforming mic arrays, certified
AudioDanteNetworked audio, certified
Video / IPNDIVideo over IP, certified
NetworkNetgear AVAV network engineering, certified
LightingLutron RadioRA 3Lighting control, certified
>90%

of issues on rooms I designed and monitored were resolved remotely, in under 5 minutes, with no truck roll. That’s 13 years of design history — reliability is designed in, not bolted on. It’s also why a remote inspection works.Monitoring record across hundreds of rooms I designed — history, not a service promise.

// I speak IT natively

Linux, containers, virtualization, VLANs, multicast. When we talk about putting AV on your network, I’m not the vendor who asks you to open all the ports.

I’m the one who tells you which ones to close.
Who you’re getting

Amos Kittelson.

I spent 13 years building an AV integration company — designing, installing, and running the exact systems I now inspect. Then I sold it.

I don’t sell hardware anymore, and that’s the point. This is high-trust work with nothing to move off a truck: I get to be the person whose only job is to be right, and still be home for dinner. The companies whose rooms I built got the edge; their people got their evenings back. Same thing I’m protecting now.

Based in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. Inspections and advisory delivered remotely nationwide; on-site by arrangement.

— Amos
Straight answers

The questions I get before the first call.

Why pay when integrators assess for free?
Because a free estimate comes from someone who wants the install. I charge a flat fee precisely so I have no stake in what you buy — like a home inspector, not the contractor bidding the job. The number I hand you is built to be right, not to win work.
Can you really inspect a room remotely?
Yes — because I experience your room the way it actually fails: from the far end. On rooms I designed and monitored, more than 90% of issues were resolved remotely in under five minutes. If your situation genuinely needs eyes in the building, I’ll say so, and on-site is on the wall at its own price.
Do you sell or install anything?
No hardware, installation, programming, service contracts, or managed support — my fee is the only money in it for me. If implementation is needed, I’ll point you to qualified providers; you’re free to use anyone, I take no commission or referral fee from any of them, and my findings don’t change based on what you decide.
What do I actually get?
The Room Reliability Snapshot: the same fixed 1–2 pages, every engagement — what the problems cost in dollars, top risks, quick wins, ranked next actions, and a go/no-go verdict. Delivered the same day. No 40-page report nobody reads.
What if something breaks Friday at 4pm?
You call whoever services your rooms — that’s not me, by design. Everything I do is scheduled and async: no SLA, no emergency response, no help desk. That boundary is what keeps the judgment independent and the calendar honest — you’re buying the verdict, not a pager.
Will you sit in on confidential meetings?
Yes — with an NDA signed before I join, every engagement. I’m there for the technology, not the content. Ask for the standard NDA and I’ll bring it signed.
Where do you work?
Remote inspections and the fractional avCTO: anywhere in the US. On-site work: by arrangement from Sioux Falls, South Dakota. If I can’t serve you well, I’ll tell you straight.
Book an inspection

Find out what your rooms are actually costing you.

One meeting. One verdict, in writing. If you don’t need me after that, I’ll be the one who says so.

Message me on LinkedIn →

Every engagement starts with a 15-minute conversation. Direct scheduling lands here shortly.
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