Bjorn Dybdahl – 11/28/09
President, Bjorn’s Audio-Video
Six years after he was born in Oslo, Norway in 1943, Bjorn Dybdahl moved with his family to Minneapolis. In 1962, he married his wife, Shari, and moved to San Antonio, Texas, as part of his tour of duty with the United States Air Force. After leaving the Air Force in December of 1968, Bjorn began what would be a lifelong career in the business of selling home audio and video products by working as a salesman for Bill Case Sound in San Antonio. In 1975, he started Bjorn’s Stereo Designs, which is now more popularly known as Bjorn’s Audio Video. Following the mantra of “We sell entertainment and fun, not equipment,” Bjorn has been able to grow his small, one-man, audio-only hi-fi shop into a 15,000 square foot retail store with more than 90 employees that also includes a service department – yes, Bjorn’s still fixes stuff – and an installation department that has grown from the early days when Bjorn would leave the store to run wires himself to a complete department with 14 installation technicians plus support personnel.. Over the last 33 years, Bjorn has been recognized for his many pioneering efforts in the industry, including being an early member of PARA (Professional Audio/Video Retailers Association) and a founding member of CEDIA (Custom Electronic Design and Installation Association). Audio Video International magazine has named Bjorn’s Audio Video an Audio/Video Retailer of the Year every year since 1987. In 2000, Frost & Sullivan presented Bjorn’s with its Market Engineering Award for Customer Service Leadership. Bjorn’s has partnered with many vendors over the years to help introduce new technologies and products to the market. Some of the notable consumer introductions include the laser disc player, the compact disc player, Dolby Digital (beginning with the first U.S. consumer demonstration), THX, the DVD (including the first U.S. consumer demonstration of dual-layer technology), the world’s first retail installation of Tomlinson Holman’s experimental 12-channel audio system, the recent world premiere of Laser Television, plus many, many more. Locally, Bjorn’s has been extremely aggressive in educating the community about consumer electronics, especially HDTV. Those efforts include an award-winning 30-minute HDTV informational program broadcast in prime time on the local ABC affiliate as well as more than 100 60 and 90-second mini-infomercial spots inserted locally during “Good Morning America”. Bjorn has also appeared as a HDTV spokesperson in many TV ads for Time Warner Cable in San Antonio. In 2006, Bjorn’s hosted the first U.S. consumer demonstrations of both Blu-ray Disc and HD DVD high-definition optical disc formats. Somehow Bjorn also finds time to work on the retail floor on a regular basis. Once in a while, he actually goes home and sees his family.
Hosts,
Bjorn Dybdahl of Bjorn's
John Thurman of Heart of Texas Realty
Scott Woolfolk of Documation
Sponsors
