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Jeremy Burkhardt Leaves SpeakerCraft, Nortek
Jeremy Burkhardt, speaking at a SpeakerCraft GIG.
Called a "retirement" by Nortek, Burkhardt's departure is effective May 25. Keith Marshall, president of SpeakerCraft spinoff Proficient Audio, has been named interim president.
In a brief interview with CE Pro following the announcement, Burkhardt says, "I'll probably go off and travel, find another company I like and be a renegade again."
And in what may be the understatement of the year, he notes, "I'm not so good at corporate structure."
RELATED: Imagining a SpeakerCraft without Jeremy Burkhardt
When asked if he had a non-compete with Nortek, Burkhardt said that non-competes are not valid in the state of California but added, "SpeakerCraft is a great company. The last thing I want to do right now is compete with them."
It appears SpeakerCraft is not planning to seek a new president while Marshall is at the helm.
The Burkhardt Legacy
Burkhardt joined SpeakerCraft in the 1980s when it was still an A/V installation firm. At the time, SpeakerCraft OEMed in-wall speakers for third-party manufacturers including many of today’s biggest brands. And then, in 1994, SpeakerCraft slapped its own brand on the products and the rest is history.
Not.
Burkhardt orchestrated a management buyout of SpeakerCraft in 2000 and sold the company to Nortek three years later for a cool $58 million.
SpeakerCraft on Linear Roll-up: 'We Would Scare the other Workers'
While SpeakerCraft's Nortek siblings were rolled into the AVC Group, the left Burkhardt's group alone.
Burkhardt’s tattoos, whack-a-Jeremy, drum circles, exuberant (and typo-ridden) online commentary, outrageous tradeshow booths, and other attention-getting shenanigans never overshadowed SpeakerCraft’s legacy: that of the best customer service provider in the custom electronics industry.
Just this year, the company was honored as the platinum winner of CE Pro’s Quest for Quality awards for sales and marketing assistance.
We don’t yet know the circumstances of Burkhardt’s departure, nor if a replacement will be named.
The company recently laid off a slew of engineers and other employees after canceling Nirv, one of its most ambitious new product roll-outs ever.
RELATED: Home Tech History: M&As by Nortek, Legrand, Duchossois, D&M
Nortek recently replaced Burkhardt’s two former bosses, both of which seemed to have a soft spot for the renegade – Grant Rummell, head of Nortek’s home technology group, and Richard Bready, CEO of Nortek. The replacements are Sean Burke and Michael Clarke, respectively.
Burke oversees the home technology brands including SpeakerCraft (and spinoff Proficient Audio), the AVC Group (Elan Home Systems, Niles, Xantech), Linear, Panamax/Furman, Secure Wireless, Gefen and Omnimount. Nortek recently sold its LiteTouch subsidiary to Savant Systems.
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Article Topics
News · Audio · Speakers · People and Places · Speakercraft · Nortek · Jeremy Burkhardt · Avc Group ·About the Author
19 Comments (displayed in order by date/time)
Can’t wait for the next chapter of the Jeremy story!
Hey Jeremy, when you get bored of being “retired”, theres a spot for you here in my 6 man company. You will fit right in, I promise!
What I find most intriguing from the story:
“Nortek had $2.14 billion in revenues for the year ended Dec. 30, 2011, with a net loss of about $56 million.”
A single quarter loss of nearly the same amount Nortek paid for Speakercraft.
Muse on this question:
Can the sustainability of the custom A/V industry be measured in some way by these conglomerates that roll-up the leading companies in the space and then exist as eleemosynaries?
I have enjoyed seeing Jeremy love what he did long and share his ideas and passion with others in a sincere way.
Thank you for that Jeremy.
Jeremy,
“Tired” has to come before “re-tired” and that, my friend, I’m certain you are not.
I’m with Julie. Can’t wait to see the next chapter.
Best of luck.
Had a hard time leading customers to SpeakerCraft. Once they look online and saw all the tats it was over. hope the next president will be someone who has a clean look about them.
Good night and good luck…
From an industry that started with people wanting to do things differently, it’s always amused me how many times someone who is truly an individual caught so much heat.
Jeremy practiced what he preached, he put in the time, blood, sweat and tears to built something most people dream about: a legacy
But as they say “haters gotta hate”
In our industry, there’s always going to be the pockets of small minds and petty egos, and heaping amounts of envy that will rise form the voices of detractors.
Jeremy did / does things his way, and the fact that he realized that what Speakercraft the company has grown into needs someone different at the helm than when he turned it into the company it is now.
Congratulations Jeremy, and well played Sir, good luck on whatever your next chapter will be.
More time for Jeremy to pursue meditation, workouts, golf, travel and other pursuits. Congratulations and good luck.
Never to be forgotten and never to be replaced. I can’t happen. Thanks Jeremy for the support, great products and friendship over the last 15+ years!
Congrats Jeremy! Never a sell out! Best of luck on your next adventure.
Jeremy,
Your AIM speakers are very popular in Russia. So we are waiting for next innovative CI product from you.
Good luck!
From kid to king, I saw him do it all! For the last several years he has piloted a profitable ship in a sinking armada; he has made the tough choices, and played the jester for forces beyond his control. Yet during all of the turmoil, his passion and goals were always aligned with the dealers and the industry he helped found. He is polarizing, but you don’t have to like him to respect what he can do. It will be interesting to see where SpeakerCraft goes from here, it will take a very strong personality (which Jeremy wrote the book on) to stay aligned with custom installers and I’m sure the pressure from above will be to move to “billion dollar” performance products. I say farewell to the “corporate culture” it was an uneasy marriage to be sure, and if you truly know Jeremy, then you will also know that this divorce was written in stone more than 10 years ago. Like others in this comment string, I look forward to seeing the next phase because legends don’t disappear or die, they go on forever.
It’s a long time coming, and alot of country with opportunities between Ed, myself and you. Sincerely the Best of Luck on any future endeavors! At least we’re all still kicking.
OK, folks ... here’s the follow-up article: Imagining a SpeakerCraft w/o JB: http://www.cepro.com/article/imagining_a_speakercraft_without_jeremy_burkhardt/
Good luck, sir.