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It takes sheer genius...

Harold Richter, President/CEO

The genius behind Richter Scale Productions, Inc. is Harold Richter. He founded the company in 1985 to deliver premiere audio and lighting services for international events. He's a visionary when it comes to designing and implementing comprehensive technical support services for conventions, high-profile corporate events, tradeshows, concerts and festivals.

Richter designed and operated the mobile sound, lighting and staging system used for the nationwide tour of the 1996 Olympic Torch Relay; he was the audio engineer for the Final Communique and for the International Media Center for the Denver Summit of the Eight; he has provided production services for personalities like Hootie and the Blowfish, Doc Severinsen, Bruce Hornsby, Roberta Flack, and Presidents Bush and Clinton, and for clients including Wells Fargo, Hitachi, MCI, Lockheed/Martin, Level 3, Sun Microsystems, among hundreds of others.

A former musician, Harold Richter has designed thousands of sound and lighting systems in environments ranging from arenas and exhibit halls to airline hangars and highway tunnels.

The Richter Scale Team:

Judy Richter, Vice President

Judy started her professional career in Los Angeles as an attorney, representing many celebrity clients, including a well-known Grand Prix racecar driver. After a few years working as a Business Affairs V.P. for Taft Entertainment, Judy “crossed over” to the creative side, and never looked back. She served as writer, producer and story editor on various projects for NBC and HBO, as well as for countless indie prod companies. While in L.A., she also produced many high profile events for charitable and political causes, raising millions of dollars and hopefully a little consciousness.

When she “escaped” from L.A., Judy ran a shelter for homeless families for three years and lived on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation for a year, working as a journalist and grant writer for the Oglala Sioux Tribe. Missing the creative/production world, Judy returned to Denver to produce the Capital Hill People's Fair for three years. And then, in a fit of restlessness, she made a brief detour to New York City to produce some serious events, including a multi-million-dollar private millennium party as well as a fundraiser at Christie's.

After working both coasts in various production capacities, Judy has settled quite happily in Denver as part of the Richter Scale team, both personally and professionally. She now serves as VP of the company, and is the designated trainer of the team mascots, Roadie and Roxie.

Kevin Kowalczyk, Director of Event Services

Originally from Chicago, Kevin settled in the mountains of Colorado a decade ago after graduating from the University of Illinois with a Psychology degree.  Realizing his one true passion in life was music, he began his career in the music and events industries.   He has worked in practically every aspect of the concert industry: ticket sales, security, marketing, publicity, promotions, and talent booking.  He's helped stage concerts in just about every major venue in the Denver area including Red Rocks, the Pepsi Center, Fillmore Auditorium, Mile High Stadium, the Boulder Theatre, and the Fox Theatre. 

More recently he spent 5 years at Skyline Talent & Events as their Vice President, booking hundreds of entertainers at corporate and private events as well as producing events such as the Stanley Cup Celebration and multiple outdoor concert series. 

Kevin keeps up on the ever-changing music scene by continuing to work part time at Twist & Shout records, volunteering as a DJ on KGNU radio in Boulder, and working as a nightclub DJ at the 3 Kings Tavern.  He's extremely excited to join the Richter Scale Team, and recently got a promotion to Director of Event Services, working with both the sales and production teams, making sure our client's vision becomes a reality. 

Eric Roa, Director of Operations

Eric was born in 1980 and grew up in Southern California. At the age of 13 his family moved to New Hampshire where he went through high school. Upon graduating high school, he was accepted at John Brown University to study for a Bachelors Degree in Construction Management. During this time Eric's interest in live production and the technologies that surround it grew. He started out with several small installations around the campus of the university and slowly moved on to bigger and more complicated installations.

After college Eric took a part time job with The Grove, a young church in Northwest Arkansas. He was the technical administrator for The Grove while freelancing with different companies doing installations and concerts. His focus quickly became the audio side of production as he developed his ear. Some of his projects include a historically protected Methodist church in Fort Smith, Arkansas, Fellowship Bible Church in Lowell, Arkansas, and he has mixed for such clients as Wal-Mart, JB Hunt, Tyson Inc, and many large acts such as Bebo Norman, Sean Groves, Diamond Rio, Little River Band, Cate Brothers, Buckwheat Zydeco, and many others. Eric came to Richter Scale Productions, Inc in June of 2005 as an audio tech. He was promoted to Director of Operations and continues his work here at Richter Scale as we expand our client base and raise the bar of quality.

John Wigginton, Sales Manager

John is a Colorado native who graduated from Manual High School and then went on to earn his BFA in Theatre Design from Tarkio College in Tarkio, Missouri. Since college, John has always been involved with lighting. After spending ten years in the Lighting Dept. of the Toni award winning Denver Center Theatre Company, John spent five years selling and supporting AGI32, the premiere architectural lighting quantification and visualization software. Most recently John was the Sales Manager for the Entertainment sector of American Lighting, a specialty lighting manufacturer. John brings over 15 years of performance, architectural and specialty lighting experience to the Sales Manager position of Richer Scale Productions.

After a short tour with Twenty Five Cent, John has decided to spend more time at home with his adorable wife Trish and his two wild and crazy boys Ryan and Aidan.

When not at work or at home, John enjoys fishing, camping, skiing, scuba diving, mountain biking, hiking and just about all things in the great outdoors (but John is always at work or at home).

John is excited to be part of the Richter Scale team and looks forward to working with you to make your next event our best event.
 

Shubie Gomez, Sales Manager 

Shubie is a Denver native; ‘one of the few’ as she boasts proudly.  She grew up in the Denver area and traveled the world playing softball.  Shubie did the tour of colleges in Colorado, starting at the University of Denver, then CU, then Adams State and ending at Metro State where Marketing and Minority Relations were her focus.  After many long debates about continuing to play softball professionally or joining the circus she decided that her talents would be better spent in the professional arena. 

 Shubie joined Richter Scale Productions after 15 years as an events planner from the food and beverage community.

 Shubie comes from a very large family! She and Renea have decided that Colorado was and is home. They are the proud parents of 2 fuzzy four legged children. 

Darren Pettapiece, Sales Manager

 As a Colorado native Darren grew up in Aurora, Colorado and is a graduate of Regis Jesuit High School.  He then went on to earn his B.S. in Natural Resources Recreation and Tourism from Colorado State University.  Having a passion for HUGE events, he worked for Party On Event Planning and coordinated all aspects of many events including two years as the lead for the Fort Collins Oktoberfest. 

After “Partying On”, he made a move to Denver and worked for a high end restaurant in the Denver Performing Arts Complex as their Director of Sales and Events.  Having a taste in the food and beverage side of events, Darren is excited to join the Richter Scale team and continue his growth in the event industry as a whole - as well as seeing some pretty exciting shows!! 

When not at work Darren is either on the soccer field or enjoying the great outdoors of Colorado, skiing, going to shows, and anything and everything between Aspen and Horsetooth Reservoir.

 Tara Stenbakken, Sales Manager

 Tara, originally from the Seattle area, moved out to Denver for college and fell in love with the sun. Needless to say, she’s still in Denver. After graduating from the University of Denver with a B.A. in Psychology and Spanish, she started her sales career with Cbeyond, a managed service provider, selling telecom services to small and mid-sized businesses in the Denver area. It’s hard to believe it can get any more exciting than selling telecom, but she has faith Richter Scale will provide her with enough excitement to always keep her on her toes. She is excited to be joining the Richter Scale team and is looking forward to taking on more national accounts.

In her spare time, Tara enjoys playing tennis and soccer, running, hiking, skiing, traveling, interpretive dancing, bow hunting and watching football. Go Seahawks!!

Jeff Mattoon, Director of Video Services 

Jeff Mattoon joins Richter Scale Productions from the video and television production world. With over 20 years experience, Jeff brings a tremendous amount of production insight to the company and our clients. 

A native of southern California, Jeff started his production life in St. Louis, Missouri as a freelance editor and production company grip. Working late one evening dubbing videotapes for a client led serendipitously to a position with American Heat, a video production company that produced fire, rescue and emergency medical service training videos. Mattoon quickly found himself traveling the country producing, writing and on-camera reporting case studies of some of the nations most notable disasters and incidents. 

When the company sold and moved, Mattoon along with three partners, established Branson Teleproductions (BT), a full service television and video production house with inter-format videotape and non-linear based editing in Branson, Missouri. With over 50,000 theater seats, Branson was fertile ground for live entertainment show production. BT was the first independent production company in the region to offer digital tape-based editing and the first in the region to place a broadcast quality Avid Media Composer into service. The client list for the production company included some of the country’s most recognizable entertainers, live music shows, corporate and commercial media companies. 

In addition to fixed production facilities, Branson Teleproductions placed two 48-foot mobile production trucks into service. The mobile division’s client list was also vast: all the major broadcast networks, and many cable networks including, ESPN, Fox, CNN, and Nickelodeon. 

Before selling his interest in the company, Jeff produced three nationally syndicated television shows, and produced, directed and wrote countless client projects.  Mattoon went on to produce, write and direct for direct response marketing clients, producing hundreds of spot commercials, and two hour-long nationally distributed infomercials. 

Jeff Mattoon’s skill set includes the creative and the technical. He is a producer, director and an award-winning writer. He is currently an independent writer for a nationally distributed aviation newspaper. He is also an established videographer, editor and director of photography.  Jeff is also a professional still photographer and enjoys flying, motorsports and sailing. 

Please call us to find out how Jeff can help improve your next production.

Kevin A. Beckham, Audio Engineer

Kevin is a 25-year industry veteran, having worked in all facets of music and industrial event production. With Commercial Audio as his goal, he began working as a production assistant for a local Concert Promoter.  Kevin also worked with local bands as a sound engineer and lighting director. During this time he quickly became one of the most sought after local audio engineers, specializing in audio reinforcement for industrial and corporate events.   

In 1990 Kevin took over a locally and nationally acclaimed country music night club called The Grizzly Rose as Production Manager.  While there, he contributed to their achievement of their first CMA award for Night Club of the Year. Moving through the 90’s, he migrated into artist support, having worked with some of Classic Rock and Contempory music’s most popular Bands such as: REO Speed Wagon, Sammy Hagar, Michael Bolton and most recently Smash Mouth.    

Kevin has also handled many events for JD Edwards, Quest, Honda and recurring events for the United States Air Force.

With a passion for customer service and audio engineering for the best in corporate and music events, it only makes sense that he came to Richter Scale Productions.     

Stuart Shiffer, Audio Engineer 

Stuart has been in the audio business since age 15 when he started playing professionally as a bass player in New York. After several years in bands in the New York area he moved to Boston to attended Berklee College of Music. During his 12 years in the Boston area, Stuart played in several regional and national acts while attending school for Music Production and Engineering. You can hear him on anything from Sesame Street, WGBH public television , HBO, to many national commercials.  

Moving to Colorado in 1992, he has worked selling hi-end pro audio gear, commercial installations for National Speaker and Sound, and as Audio Analysts in-house audio tech. At Audio Analysts Stuart was responsible for assembling all the FOH and Monitor rigs that went out the door. He also was the main console and effect audio tech. 

After leaving AA, he was a freelance audio engineer for several years, then took on the position of Production Manager at the Grizzly Rose in Denver Co. a 2000 capacity venue six nights a week, show casing over 40 national country acts a year.

Coming to Richter Scale Productions in July of 2007, Stuart has brought a level of expertise that has been unheard of around our office.

Joey Howell, Audio Engineer 

Joey was born and raised in and around Denver, Colorado where he grew up surrounded by a musical family.  He couldn’t help becoming a musician at a young age.  With piano lessons from mom starting at age 5, he moved on to playing saxophone in the school orchestra and jazz bands during elementary/ middle school.  From picking up the bass guitar in eighth grade and the acoustic guitar in high school, his love of music continued to grow as he wrote, recorded and performed music in different bands.  Never satisfied with the sounds his bands were getting, Joey often found himself behind a soundboard learning what it took to get the sound he wanted.  Later, he realized that from these experiences, he not only had a passion for playing music, but also for the art of audio engineering as well.   

Jesse Bielak, Transportation and Logistics Manager 

Staging, transportation, sherpa, fluffer, all around Renaissance Man.  Most of Jesse’s past is unrecorded.  It is rumored that he was raised in the wilderness by wolves, but no one knows for sure.  To this day, Jesse is still a bit of a mountain man, but society has molded him to become the respectable citizen he is today.  Although big and hairy, Jesse is a very gentle and sociable creature, who takes pride in a job well done.  It is hard to say what Jesse does outside of his work life, as he is elusive and near impossible to track.  When asked about his passions in life, it was simply this - long walks, kitties and a chilled glass of pinot - that’s all that matters.

John Curcio, Lighting Designer  

John has recently joined RSP as a lighting designer and lead drafts-person. John began his lighting career at Palomar College's Theatre Arts department in San Diego.  He later joined San Diego Repertory Theatre as a staff LD where he did plays, most notably, the touring production of Shakespeare’s, Titus Andronicus. He also freelanced for the Old Globe Theatre in San Diego for many years. From there he moved to NYC and worked on crew for several Broadway plays with Production Arts Lighting. During that same period, he freelanced for Vega Associates as a lighting director doing televised sporting events.

In the mid eighties, he returned home to San Francisco to work for FM Productions, both in the electrics and design departments. There he did corporate shows and rock tours. During this same time, he also independently worked in film and television in the Los Angeles area.  

After FM, he did the lighting for 680 performances of a long running San Francisco play, as well as several touring productions of the same play. He also worked for many well-known designers during these years, assisting with drawings and on site lighting direction for projects around the world. 

In the early nineties he did the lighting and toured with several popular rock bands. In 1993 he joined the newly formed Lightswitch where he did drafting, design and office management for corporate shows, rock tours, special events and architecture.

In 1999, he did the lighting for the Bay Area Millennium Concerts, featuring twelve headline acts. The event was broadcasted live on NBC television. During this same year, he also toured with a popular rock band.  From 2000 to 2004, he continued to work for Lightswitch and also freelanced on a wide range of projects. 

Before joining RSP, he worked as a lighting consultant for an aerospace start-up company near Canada. There he helped in the development of a new solid-state lighting product that uses steering mirror technology. 

April Nielsen, Lighting Tech/Programmer

April was born and raised in Richmond, Virginia.

In college April was introduced to lighting as an art form.  She became fascinated with the ways lighting could be used in different mediums and applications.  She began working under a Lighting Designer named Alex Von Saher, where she went from working as a light board operator at the University produced opera's and follow-spot operator for the yearly Thomas Road Baptist Church Christmas gala The Living Christmas Tree, to becoming Alex Von Saher’s assistant. After college she worked with a local production company and got in on the re-fledging of the Theatre Arts department at Liberty University as a free lance Lighting Designer and provider of soft-set designs. During her “day job” she lit shows and people such as Kevin Spencer the magician, the late Dr. Jerry Falwell, Listen America, The Living Christmas Tree, Aaron Jeffrey, and FFH.

Three years later the production company went through a “down-sizing” and April was offered the chance to do lighting and costuming for a Liberty University Theater Arts department that was beginning to come into its own. She has seen Liberty ’s Theatre Arts department grow from three shows a year to a full and growing department that offers a major with five concentrations while managing seven to nine main stage productions a year as well as an Opera and several senior student projects as well. She has designed the lights for every Theater production that Liberty University has produced since 1999 and hasn't had to worry about costumes for three years now. She gets tired just thinking about it. She has designed competition shows such as the Virginia collegiate premier of Aida, and Into the Woods, both of which won KCACTF Top 10 placement.  She also has designed for Disney's Beauty and the Beast, Love's Labor's Lost. Once on this Island, and several original works by Director/Playwright Linda Nell Cooper, as well as Professor Desiree Smith.

April is so pleased to have joined the Richter Scale family. When not at work she loves to bike, swim, do various random craft/art projects, garden and also likes to spend time with her friends and family (at the Theater). 

Josh Hallenbeck, Lighting Tech/Programmer

Josh was born in October of 1980 and grew up in Vail, CO after being adopted by his mother Jeannine and father George. He attended school there until his last three years of High School, at which time he transferred to and graduated from Hyde School in Bath, ME. It was there that Josh got his start as a theater tech for the schools many performances. 

Upon graduating from High School, Josh attended two years at the University of Colorado in Boulder. Interestingly, he found that he was learning more working then he was attending class, and decided to take a road towards a more experientially-based education.  

Josh got his professional career started at Macky Auditorium in Boulder, CO supporting the many cultural events to occur there, including Operas, Ballets, Symphonies, Rock Concerts and many other ethnic events. While in Boulder, Josh also worked freelance for many events, to include many runs of the Nutcracker with various Ballet companies and as assistant Rigger and lighting Tech for the Aerial Dance Festival hosted by the aerial dance company Frequent Flyers. 

In a big move in 2005, Josh took a job as an Entertainment Technician at Turning Stone Casino in upstate New York. There he acted as Master Electrician and house Lighting Designer for their 5000 seat Event Center. While there, Josh designed lights for acts such as Larry the Cable Guy, Jose Feliciano, Nationally Televised Boxing (Friday Night Fights), WWF, Paula Deen Cooking Show, Joss 9 Ball Tournament, the Cirque Du Noel Christmas Ice show which combined ice dancing and circus acrobatics and many internal Casino functions to include Food Festivals, Cash Giveaways, and trade shows.  

Josh also acted as House Electrician and Lighting Crew chief for many nationally touring Rock and Country acts to come through the Casino, to include Kid Rock, Toby Keith, Tim McGraw, Josh Groban, Micheal Buble, Mariah Carey, Big and Rich, Brooks and Dunn, Bare Naked Ladies, Black Eyed Peas, Steeley Dan, Gwen Stefany, and many others. 

Josh returned to Colorado in July of 2007 to work for Richter Scale as a Lighting Tech and Designer. He is immensely happy to back in his home state, where his entire family resides. Josh's biggest passion outside of work is whitewater kayaking, which he has done since the age of 12.

Katie Roby, Admin. Assistant

Katie joined the Richter Scale Productions team in late April 2007.  Although Katie had spent the previous five years working as an Office Manager in a very different industry, she joins the staff with several years of administrative experience in audiovisual sales, service and installation.  Katie is familiar with many of the industries manufacturers and is looking forward to learning their place in the Richter Scale event menu.  Katie will be the organization behind the scenes and is ALWAYS available to assist our clients at any time.