We’re going live in 5,4,3,2,1.

When watching Up To Speed Live host Jeremy Godwin transition from pre-recorded videos to the latest breaking news to interacting with guests like Hans, Christy or Guru in other parts of the country, to asking incoming questions from V Teamers, the question arises: How does he do all of that so effortlessly all by himself?

First of all, while Jeremy is alone in his basement, he’s not really by himself.

Like other V Teamers, he’s supported by a crew of colleagues that help him look and sound his best. One of those people is director Chris Toohey.

“I’m a studio engineer, and when this idea to run the show my house first came up, I was like, this is crazy,” remembered Chris. “It was a big effort, but we’ve done everything we can to transform my garage into a studio. We hauled a bunch of equipment from the Basking Ridge studio, set it up down here and started testing.”

Chris’ garage studio comes complete with a John Deere tractor and, when his wife is working as a nurse, an 18 month-old office assistant, his son Tyler.

One key piece of the puzzle is having a fast and reliable internet connection. “Both Chris and I have Fios gigabit connections,” said Jeremy. “We knew it would be reliable and it has made such a difference.”

The feed is routed from Jeremy through Chris’ basement where the audio and video are mixed and then through the Basking Ridge studio. Bill Keller is able to add captions remotely from his house in Pennsylvania.

But the technical side is only part of the equation.

“Once Chris had all of the connections right, we needed to make sure our leaders and V Teamers on the broadcast could see and hear us,” said Jeremy. “And once we knew how we were going to communicate, we had to start the ongoing discussion of what to communicate. That’s when I turn to the Communications team and our leadership for daily discussions.”

Changes, sometimes only minutes before broadcast, require flexibility and quick-thinking from Jeremy and the team. But overall, the garage/basement studio experiment has been a success, so much so that in addition to Up To Speed Live, Chris and Jeremy will also be broadcasting today’s Earnings Call and 1Q Results Webcast the same way.

So the next time you see Jeremy alone in his basement, think of Chris alone in his garage and Bill alone in his house. And remember that without them and a crew of other people, including all of the V Teamers who maintain an ultra fast and reliable network each and every day, none of us would be… Up To Speed.

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