After becoming bored with the retail industry, where he had worked for 13 years, and needing more of a challenge, Gordon Moore's redirection to the AV industry was more a stroke of luck than anything else. The feeling of needing a change pushed him to start a small computer business. However, he quickly saw the writing on the wall: This would soon become a commodity purchased at local retailers like Walmart, so it would not be the long-term path he wanted.
[SCN Hall of Fame 2025: Gordon Dutch]
“I opened up the paper one Saturday morning, and there was an ad for a sales position at Lectrosonics,” Moore recalled. “I had no idea who they were or what they did, but it said it was about audio.”
When Moore was in college, he was known as an audio savant, so he thought, why not? Seeing that ad in the paper led to a 35-year career with Lectrosonics, a leader in wireless microphone and audio processing for mission-critical applications. He served as president from 2015 until his retirement in 2024, but fondly remembers where he started with them: cold-calling people and getting reactions like "Who is Lectrosonics?"
“We were pretty unknown in the business at that time,” he said. “We had a lot of groundwork to lay in those early years.”
Eventually, Lectrosonics was picked up by a few major TV stations in Chicago, including WGN, and things really took off. “We were selling maybe five or 10 wireless channels a week at that time—and within a year, we were selling 250 a month,” he added. “We grew like crazy in the 80s and 90s.”
One of the company's biggest moments of growth came from a surprising endorsement from acting legend Angela Lansbury after she fell in love with its wireless microphones on a commercial shoot. She then insisted that her prime-time series, Murder, She Wrote, switch to Lectrosonics, which contributed to their growth. “That was an influencer before the word existed,” he said.
When asked what career moment he is most proud of, Moore pivoted to his time as an educator. In 1991, he attended InfoComm and was taken aback by the quality and level of instruction in the various seminars he attended. He ran into Fred Dixon, who was in charge of the education committee at the time, and was open with him about his disappointment surrounding the sessions.
His co-worker, who was attending with him, said that Moore could do a better job, and two weeks later, he got a call to start teaching with AVIXA. He would later become the chairman of the Professional Education and Training Committee (PETC) and was awarded the Fred Dixon Lifetime Achievement Award for Education in 2019. He loved that his work in education allowed him to interact with so many different people within the industry, and he said he was fortunate that Lectrosonics allowed him to take such a significant role in that space.
[SCN Hall of Fame 2025: Edgar Shane]
Even though he is retired, Moore currently serves as board chairman for Lectrosonics and, apart from that, helps his local church with its AV and technology needs, keeping him engaged in the industry. But as he reflects on his career, he can’t stress enough the importance of education, encouraging everyone to pursue their CTS certifications through AVIXA and not to be afraid to get involved.
“Don't just sit back and wait for the boss to say, 'I need somebody to troubleshoot this.’ Learn how to troubleshoot things and become the troubleshooter,” he added.
