Thorburn Associates, Inc. (TA), a leading technology engineering and acoustics company with significant business in the higher education sector, welcomes Joe Schuch to the firm as a senior associate for new learning environments. Schuch comes to TA from the University of North Carolina (UNC) where he and his team pioneered self-serve multimedia and tele-teaching classrooms as well as collaborative and informal learning spaces. He is based at TA's offices in Raleigh-Durham, North Carolina.

"The trend toward low-impact solutions with accelerated timelines challenges every higher education project," says TA principal Steve Thorburn. "Joe's reputation for collaborative innovation fits with our commitment to meet our clients' timing and budgetary needs with next-generation technologies and best-practices."

Schuch began his career nearly two decades ago at the Institute for Academic Technology, the distinguished IBM-funded think-tank exploring cutting-edge learning technologies for higher education. His tenure at UNC Information Technology Services saw the fulfillment of the Chancellor's classroom improvement initiative: the design and deployment of hundreds of high-tech learning spaces backed by an enterprise-grade classroom support organization.

Schuch is a recipient of the Governor's Ralph W. Ketner Award, presented to state workers whose innovations deliver extraordinary value to the State of North Carolina that result in cost reductions, labor savings and quality improvements. His Total Cost of Ownership application for modeling classroom budgets has been adopted by hundreds of colleges as a standard metric for projecting maintenance, support and lifecycle costs associated with classroom resources.

Schuch's connection with TA dates back some 15 years to when he and Steve Thorburn became acquainted at InfoComm, the international AV industry marketplace where both were running educational sessions. Schuch has been a frequent presenter at national conferences including an adjunct faculty member at InfoComm. He has chaired the InfoComm Technology Managers Council and sat on the InfoComm Board of Governors. He was active in forming AV-1, an independent online community for technology managers and planners, and continues to contribute to its online newsletter, The AV-1 Insider.

"Throughout my career, I have had the good fortune to work with some of the most active thinkers in teaching and learning," says Schuch. "TA provides the opportunity to take the conversation to the broader academic community to support our partners' long-range planning for new learning environments and cost-effective educational infrastructure."

Headquartered in Castro Valley, CA, with regional offices in Los Angeles and Raleigh-Durham, NC, TA specializes in highly technological projects. Thorburn Associates has been recognized as one of the leading firms in the acoustical and audiovisual system design industry. In the course of 16 years in business, TA projects have received multiple awards, from the International Communications Industry Association (ICIA-InfoComm), the American Institute of Architects (AIA) and the Themed Entertainment Association (TEA). Visit www.TA-Inc.com.