july2017

292 293 so it was that band that kind of launched our first product in the marketplace.”Soon, Janis and his own band–this time of engi- neers -began innovating and exploring.“It’s no different than anything else,”he says.“Once you start to look into it, you want to optimize things; you start to make specialty products. So, if I look at where this company’s come from, it’s always been about trying to find underserviced niche markets, and trying to estab- lish the brand as a market leader.Over the years, we’ve become such a dominant player in that game because we don’t offer one box–we offer a hundred solutions.” Today, Radial Engineering,with its team of over 90 employees and a large number of sub-con- tractors in Canada, the U.S., and around the world, offers a wide array of professional audio prod- ucts that it markets under sev- eral brand names, and sells only through a global network of dealers and distributors.They include: Radial -products for the professional live audio RADIAL ENGINEERING LTD. rector for Fender Canada (TMI), Canada’s national distributor of Fender amplifiers and guitars. Ten years later, after turning down an offer to take a job in the States when Fender Canada was shut down to centralize all its operations in the U.S., Janis went on to start a few of his own businesses and finally wound up founding Radi- al Engineering.“A fewyears later, there was this aha! moment,when I realized that there was a certain product that was just underrepresented in the market place and it was the direct box,” Janis remembers.“What this device does is allowyou to connect a bass or a keyboard or laptop computer to the PA system, so the thing can be heard.And no one was specializing in this area; this little box was just an afterthought.” Radial produced its first direct box, the Radial JDI, in 1996.“It was purchased by Bruce Spring- steen,” says Janis.“He wanted a custom-made box, AT A GLANCE RADIAL ENGINEERING WHAT: A manufacturer of profes- sional audio products WHERE: Vancouver, British Columbia WEBSITE: www.radialeng.com