At BCIT, we are committed to supporting the people who shape and elevate our students’ journey. The People Plan: Caring for our people. Strengthening BCIT together guides how we support employee wellbeing, growth, belonging, and transformation.
Through the Our People series on BCIT News, we celebrate the passion, expertise, and impact of individuals who help shape a better future at BCIT and beyond.
Meet the Audio Visual Projects & Installations team (Pablo Medeiros, Joe Nadeau, Benson Wang, and Mike Luk), a BCIT 2026 Employee Excellence recipient in the Outstanding Contribution – Department category.
What does it mean to your team to be a 2026 Employee Excellence Award recipient?
It means a great deal to all of us because it’s recognition of the work our team has been doing behind the scenes to improve the AV experience across BCIT. We’re a small team, but we’re responsible for projects across multiple campuses and support hundreds of teaching and learning spaces.
Receiving this award validates the countless (sometimes personal) hours of planning, design, programming, installation, testing, commissioning, and problem-solving that often go unnoticed.
It’s also recognition that collaboration, technical excellence, and putting our clients first really do make a difference. We take a lot of pride in creating technology that people don’t have to think about – classrooms that simply work, allowing instructors to focus on teaching and students to focus on learning.
We’re incredibly proud of what we’ve accomplished together.
Looking back on the past year, what do you think contributed most to your team receiving this award?
I think it came down to three things: collaboration, innovation, and consistency.
We bring an incredible depth of technical expertise, and everyone on the team shares knowledge openly. We don’t work in silos, and we don’t focus on job titles, we focus on solving problems together.
We also challenged ourselves to rethink how projects could be delivered. Instead of relying solely on external integrators, we continued building our in-house expertise, standardized our designs, and enhanced our programming and installation processes. Today, many of our designs, programming standards, documentation, and commissioning practices have become the benchmark for how we deliver AV projects across BCIT.
That has allowed us to deliver more projects, complete increasingly complex work internally, improve long-term supportability, and provide a more consistent experience for our clients.
Most importantly, everyone genuinely cares about doing what’s best for BCIT and for the instructors, staff, and students who rely on these spaces every day.
Are there any projects that your team is most proud of this year? In a nutshell, can you describe what this project is about?
One project that really stands out is the Nursing (BSN) Expansion Project.
It was BCIT AV’s first deployment of an interconnected Extron NAV AV-over-IP system, designed, programmed, commissioned, and fully integrated in-house by our team.
The project demonstrated that BCIT has the expertise to deliver highly sophisticated AV systems internally, reducing costs while giving us greater control over programming, future upgrades, long-term support, and the overall user experience.
More importantly, it showed what can happen when an organization invests in its people. It gave our team the opportunity to grow our technical capabilities while creating a solution that will continue to benefit BCIT for years to come.
How did collaboration—within your team or across departments—play a role in your success this year?
Collaboration has probably been the biggest contributor to our success.
Within our team, everyone has a voice. We don’t have a rigid hierarchy where only one person has the answers. Ideas come from everyone, and we trust each other’s expertise.
One philosophy we strongly believe in is that there are no bad ideas when you’re trying to improve a process or solve a problem. Even if an idea isn’t the final solution, it often sparks another idea that leads us there.
Outside our team, we worked closely with Library Services, IT Services, Safety & Security, Timetabling, Procurement & Corp. Services, faculty, vendors, and many other stakeholders. AV projects touch almost every part of BCIT, so building strong relationships across departments has been essential.
Those relationships have allowed us to move projects forward more efficiently, solve challenges earlier, and deliver better outcomes for the BCIT community. We are grateful for them.
What aspect of BCIT’s workplace culture has helped your team thrive in your role or project?
BCIT encourages innovation and empowers staff to improve the way things are done.
Our team has been trusted to introduce new technologies, develop institute-wide standards, improve processes, and take ownership of increasingly complex projects. That trust has allowed us to grow both technically and professionally.
Equally important is the culture within our own team. We encourage people to share ideas, ask questions, challenge assumptions, and continuously learn from one another. Everyone is both a teacher and a student, regardless of their role or years of experience.
That openness has helped us continuously improve while maintaining a strong focus on quality, service, and supporting the BCIT community.
What’s next for your team – any goals, upcoming projects, or aspirations on the horizon?
We’re excited about what’s ahead.
One of our biggest priorities is continuing to modernize BCIT’s teaching spaces. When our classroom modernization program began, there were approximately 800 AV systems across the institute that required renewal. We’ve made significant progress, but there are still over 100 legacy AV systems (many 10-15 years old) that remain to be upgraded.
Our goal is to complete the modernization of these remaining spaces so we can transition from catching up on aging technology to proactively managing the AV lifecycle. That means renewing classrooms before they become outdated, keeping pace with advances in technology, and providing a more consistent, reliable experience for instructors and students across BCIT.
We’re also continuing to expand our AV standards, improve consistency across campuses, strengthen our in-house expertise, and deliver increasingly complex projects internally. Every project helps us build knowledge that benefits future projects and creates long-term value for BCIT.
As demand for modern learning spaces continues to grow, we’re excited about the opportunity to continue growing our team’s capabilities and improving our workspace to better support the institute’s needs. We’ve shown what a small, collaborative team can accomplish, and we believe that continued investment in people, expertise, and proper infrastructure will allow us to deliver even greater value to BCIT in the years ahead.
Ultimately, our goal is to build an AV department that is innovative, sustainable, and trusted across the institute. Creating reliable, intuitive technology so instructors can focus on teaching, students can focus on learning, and the BCIT community can focus on what matters most.
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