Steve Short

Imagine working with world-class hotel chains that host live events for world-famous people. Now imagine the President of the United States appearing at your live event. Steve Short worked these for four different Presidents. He says,

“When it’s the President, it doesn’t matter how complicated it is; if it’s one microphone, it’s the most stressful microphone in the history of the world.”

No pressure there.

Steve Short’s strongest roots are in the audiovisual side of live event planning and implementation, where he spent nearly twenty-five years.

One proud moment for Steve was when an unpredictable circumstance prevented President Bill Clinton from appearing in person at the hotel where he worked. With less than two days to go and working with new technology, Steve and his team pivoted and live-streamed Clinton from a remote location. It wasn’t as simple as logging into Zoom back then. Such a feat usually required satellite trucks on both ends.

This creative, technology-driven pivot, anchored in human interaction, would follow Steve throughout his career. We don’t have the space here today, but when you engage the lad, ask him about the time his company purchased thousands of iPod Touch devices to provide a mobile event app experience for a live event. It’s a fascinating story!

At this point, we’re feeling pretty good about having Steve on our ServiceTitan coaching team. But we’re getting ahead of ourselves.

Steve’s father-in-law invented an evaporative precooler and needed both Steve’s existing skill set and one that he would learn and fine-tune along the way. From manufacturing to sales, installation, service and much more, Steve had his fingerprints in every department.

Steve’s value did not suddenly descend upon the business, however. It evolved in his ability to apply creative thinking to problem-solving. If you were to build a word cloud out of our discussion with Steve for his bio, the main words would be: problem-solving, creativity, creative process, business development, communications, communication technology, leading-edge technology and people.

Seven years passed by as Steve accumulated precious HVAC knowledge and experience. As his father in law approached retirement, they sold the business in 2017, but Steve continued as CEO thru 2020.

After departing the Evaporative Cooling business in 2020, Steve went to work for a gentleman whom he had met as part of a University of California association/initiative to test emerging energy-savings technology. Initially, as a consultant, Steve’s primary task was to source HVAC service management software for this residential contractor. Once the company purchased Steve’s recommendation, ServiceTitan, it brought Steve on as an employee to implement it. That role evolved into the Director of Residential Services, overseeing more than one hundred employees. A few years later, Steve’s position was eliminated due to company restructuring. Contacts at ServiceTitan informed Steve of Certified ServiceTitan coaching organizations like Go Time. He chose us, yay!

Steve’s wife’s name is Jennifer; she works as a scheduler in the California State Assembly. They’re proud parents of a daughter, Sidney, and sons Ethan and Gavin. Sidney does legislative analysis for the California State Parks, Ethan is a mechanical engineer and Gavin recently graduated from high school.

Steve studied both Business and Art at Chapman College. Before he pursued a business career, his goal was to become an Artist/ Art teacher. The love of ceramics, drawing, painting and sculpture continues to simmer below the surface of his career. Another passion of Steve’s is attending live musical events.