GenXYZ: Shawn Hansson, 35

Founder and CEO, Logic Integration

Mike Dano //October 15, 2013//

GenXYZ: Shawn Hansson, 35

Founder and CEO, Logic Integration

Mike Dano //October 15, 2013//

Hansson turned his love of electronics and A/V equipment into a business that counts the likes of DISH Network, Sprint, Costco and others as customers.

You have a minor in music. Was rock star your first career choice?

No. Actually in 2000 I toured with a group all over the U.S. and met my wife; she was the singer and I was the drummer. We were helping youth who were abused and addicted to substances, and counseling them. So we’d do big rock concerts and then we’d hang out after and basically encourage kids, help them find help. We did that for a year. Then we got married, moved to Colorado, worked for a couple of other companies and started this company.

On the Logic Integration website, you’re described as a “boy genius” because you were installing A/V equipment in your teens. Is that right?

Well, my dad was into electronics. So I grew up with kind of an obsession with that stuff and I was taking apart things I wasn’t supposed to. I remember when I was about 8 years old, I took a brand new pair of JBL speakers that my dad had. I took the drivers out and wanted to see what was inside. I eventually started building my own speakers and trying out different boxes and materials.

A major piece of the Logic Integration sales pitch is that you make easy-to-use technology. How?

I have an approach kind of like Steve Jobs. He changed the way we interface with technology. So what we try to do here at our company is approach everything like a kid. If you walk up to a remote or touch panel, what do you want to do? Well I want to turn it on first. What’s the next thing I want to do? What do you want to listen to or watch?

The rest is behind-the-scenes. The customer doesn’t care how we do it, we just get it done. And that way, when someone walks into a board room or a theater, they can walk up, touch the iPad, and they really don’t need instruction.