Founded in 1857 by brothers Herman and Augustus Kountze, First National Bank of Omaha (FNBO) has grown substantially over the years. Today, FNBO has more than $30 billion in assets and is one of the largest privately held banks in the United States.
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In 2020, FNBO decided to fully refresh the AV systems in its Omaha, NE-based, 45-story headquarters, which is the tallest building between Chicago and Denver. The refresh included more than 250 conference rooms on 40 floors and the construction of the project's crown jewel, the Experience Center on the 19th floor.
Longtime FNBO AV supplier CTI was chosen to do the multi-year refresh, which wrapped up at the end of 2024. “The reason we chose CTI to be part of our team is we needed a partner that could be part of us, dream with us, be visionary with us, but yet then provide a practical, functional solution that would work for us,” said FNBO SVP Brenda Dooley. “We kind of knew what we wanted, but we didn't know how to pull it together. So, it was important that we had a partner with us long term as we look to how technology changes in the future and provide those solutions for us.”
To put it mildly, the refresh was very much a transformation. “FNBO’s idea of a video collaboration-style conference room had been a wall-mounted TV with an HDMI cord coiled up beside it,” said Josh Keller, design consultant, CTI. “Then COVID happened and they had to reinvent everything. Everybody was now at home—and the company had not been set up for videoconferencing and didn't have the infrastructure in place to do it. That's where this project came from.”
The Crown Jewel
Without a doubt, FNBO’s Experience Center is the peak of CTI’s AV refresh. It is a large, comfortable space with extensive seating, bolstered by ceiling-mounted Barco video projectors and Shure microphones, Samsung LED monitors, Absen video walls, and LG BH Series Ultra Stretch digital signage. “They wanted to create an environment that would appeal to the caliber of clients they’re trying to attract,” Keller said. “Because their focus is on credit card processing, their goal is to ensure these high-level customers feel welcomed and valued the moment they walk through the door."
To describe the Experience Center’s video assets as eye-catching is an understatement. "As soon as you step off the elevator, you’re greeted by an Absen 1.5-pixel wraparound LED video wall designed to immediately draw you in,” said Keller. “We incorporated several portrait-mounted Samsung Q Series 98-inch displays and strategically placed ultra-stretch screens throughout the space. Add in the immersive background audio, a high-end lounge area for client meetings, and multiple conference rooms, and the Experience Center delivers a truly engaging environment.”
Barco projector mapping helps the Experience Center combine storytelling, discovery, and hospitality on its walls. “We incorporated several truly unique elements,” Keller said. “There’s a custom wood relief map wall that’s brought to life with projection mapping, allowing visitors to see each branch location highlighted on the surface. Another highlight is a section where their original 19th-century charter is embossed onto the wall. Motion-activated by walking up to the wall simulates the charter being written in real time as someone approaches. It’s a uniquely immersive way to connect their roots with modern storytelling.”
Universally User Friendly
Given that FNBO’s staff are not tech gurus, CTI designed the bank’s conference rooms (of varying sizes) to be consistent in design while being very easy to use. Basically, if you know how to run one FNBO conference room AV system, you know how to run them all.
“Everything had to be standardized,” said Keller. “When you're doing something like this, if you go through and sit down and try to design every single room by itself, it's just not possible. For instance, we standardized on Samsung for pretty much all the in-room displays; whether it's their smallest display at 55 inches or all the way up to 98 inches.”
Functionally speaking, FNBO’s rooms are controlled using touchpads loaded with Zoom videoconferencing software. CTI selected Neat bars and control pads equipped with cameras, speakers, and microphones for use in the smaller rooms, while Shure MXA910 ceiling array mics, Logitech Rally cameras, and Altas speakers were used in the larger spaces.
“Any video routing was done through Crestron DM NVX equipment throughout the building,” Keller said. “Anything that we had to tie in through a video matrix was done that way. Most of the system controls throughout the building go through Crestron as well.”
It is the Zoom touchpads that provide a standardized user experience in all FNBO’s conference rooms. “When you walk into any of their rooms, they have a Zoom touchpanel so that the user experience is exactly the same no matter the size of the room,” said Keller. “When we get to the real advanced rooms, we do add a secondary page for additional controls. But you still have that main Zoom user interface so that it doesn’t matter who is walking into the room: Anybody could have a basic meeting there.
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"Since we were getting to retrain the users at this point, the way that we wanted to retrain them was that you don't even need an HDMI cable at this point,” he added. “We recommended that they join wirelessly through Zoom, and then share any content that they had through that connection. This approach met their needs."
Security Considerations
Completing the FNBO project did not come without its challenges. Besides the sheer scope of the project with its hundreds of rooms, CTI had to ensure that the system was sufficiently secure to protect bank financial information and other confidential data.
“We had to make sure that everything was vetted by their team,” said Keller. “So, in the very beginning, all the equipment had to be penetration-tested to verify its security. We did have to provide those tests back to them and make sure that the security team itself was signing off on everything that was going to be on their network before we installed it.”
All content that runs on FNBO’s AV LAN is kept isolated from the traffic on the company’s main network. "We built a separate AV network that was a closed loop and not connected to the internet at all,” Keller explained. “Only the UC engines and anything that needed to have active security updates on a daily basis has been connected to the outside world."
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Today, FNBO’s advanced AV system is wowing visitors and staff alike. “Overall, I thought the refresh project went really well,” said Keller. “This was one of my largest projects in my career to date. But thanks to CTI’s skilled engineering team, it worked.”
