What’s your job? is a series focused on the work of FP&M employees. As the largest and most diverse nonacademic unit on campus, it can be challenging to learn everything our division is responsible for. These stories shine a light on FP&Mers and what they do to keep campus safe, sustainable and successful.
If you’ve ever been in a general assignment classroom — one that isn’t owned or operated by a specific department — you’ve likely noticed the audio-visual (AV) equipment. These classrooms are equipped with video projectors, touch control panels, various connecting ports, and sometimes, microphones. But did you know one person is behind selecting, coding, installing, and maintaining much of this technology? Meet Derek Dombrowski, FP&M’s AV Engineer Technical Lead.
Derek is a vital part of the Space Management unit in FP&M’s Campus Planning & Design department. Today, he works with five other technicians — but when he was hired in 1998, Derek had only one coworker and a supervisor. In addition, the workload has increased from overseeing the AV equipment in 15 classrooms to overseeing those same resources in approximately 250! It’s a big job, but Derek and his team handle it with skill and efficiency.
Learning would be severely impacted if these AV components were absent from the classroom. Especially in more visual disciplines, the ability to project an image or video is essential, making Derek and his team in high demand.
To accommodate the number of classrooms, Derek and his team created a help desk in the early 2000s. The feature has a telephone system that allows a user to call the team from the classroom. This provides timely service while also allowing the AV team to communicate with instructors without having to physically visit a classroom, which was a main priority for Derek.
“A number of instructors who have been all around different universities have said that they really like teaching here because every room has a phone that they just pick up, and they talk to us,” Derek said. “They don’t have to dial, they don’t have to look at a number, they don’t have to call anyone or just hope that someone can come by. They just pick up a phone and we help them immediately.”
The support phones are not the only innovation Derek has implemented. Due to greater demand for AV technology, he wanted to standardize equipment to make it easier for both instructors and AV technicians to use and fix. To do so, he manually designed and programmed the systems in each classroom to maximize functionality and reliability. For example, Derek’s team is currently in the process of transitioning from one, outdated system (AMX) to a newer, more straightforward system (QSC), which required him to learn a new coding language. It’s this type of challenge that Derek enjoys.
“Over a period of about nine months, I rewrote all of the AMX code in the new coding language, Lua,” Derek said. “It was a busy time but it worked, and last summer we installed our first QSC control systems with the Lua code. There are always improvements and bugs here and there, but for the most part they are stable. And that’s what I like. I enjoy the challenge of figuring things out and making something work.”
Derek also partners with the McBurney Disability Resource Center to continue to improve AV accessibility at UW–Madison. He developed a system to support live human captioning that can be accessed remotely, from anywhere in the world, meaning a translator can call into the system, listen to the class and type out a transcript.
“That’s been pretty revolutionary, because that functionality is built into over 100 classrooms right now,” Derek said. “It’s really allowed them to offer a lot more captioning to many more students, and that’s a great feeling.”
As the AV team continues to grow, Derek has been able to shift his focus to programming and system design, a part of the job he loves. He also values the freedom to problem-solve through trial and error and collaborate with the tight-knit team.
“I work a fair amount with all of my coworkers — they’re all excellent,” Derek said. “They’ve all got their skills and we all specialize in our own area, which helps distribute responsibilities fluidly. I’m very proud of the work we’ve done. We’ve evolved from nothing into the empire we are today.”
In all of his projects, Derek is focused on helping the greatest number of people possible and aims to be an approachable figure on campus for those in need of AV assistance or accommodation. Through his kind demeanor and years of experience, he accomplishes this goal daily for FP&M.
Want to learn more about AV equipment at UW–Madison? More information is available on the classroom media support webpage. You can get in touch with Derek at derek.dombrowski@wisc.edu.
By Corinne Loth
Corinne is a strategic communications student intern with FP&M Marketing & Communications. She is a senior at UW–Madison majoring in Communications and Information Science with a certificate in Digital Studies. Corinne has been working at FP&M since winter 2024.