Adrian Forbes-Black

Adrian Forbes-Black is Vice-President of Sales & Marketing for TOMCAT & joined the company in 2017.  Adrian is based at TOMCAT’s west coast sales office & warehouse in Thousand Oaks, CA.  As well as responsibility for sales & marketing of TOMCAT products, Adrian also has American market oversight over the other brands in the Area Four Industries group - James Thomas Engineering, MILOS, LITEC, EXE Technology, Mobiltechlifts, Xstage and Xtruss.

Born in the United Kingdom, Adrian has lived in California since 2006. Most recently he was Vice-President of Total Structures. Prior to that role, he held management positions at Columbus McKinnon, TOMCAT UK and Total Fabrications, with a total of over 25 years' experience in the entertainment technology industry. The joint recipient of the 2013 ESTA Frank Stewart Volunteer of the Year Award for his work on the ANSI E1.21 outdoor structure standard, Forbes-Black regularly contributes to other national standards relating to structures, truss, chain hoists, and other associated rigging equipment.

Adrian has performed training relating to truss, structures and electric chain hoists for almost 20 years.

Will Todd
 

Will Todd has been with TOMCAT USA, Inc. since 2000.  As COO, he oversees all aspects of custom projects including budgeting, scheduling, design, manufacturing methods and installation procedures, along with standard product manufacturing and the technical department of the company.  In addition to his current role, Will has also served TOMCAT customers previously as a Sales Representative, Project Manager and Product Support Manager. 

While at TOMCAT, he has been involved in multiple projects with a variety of customers such as Cirque du Soleil, Feld Entertainment, and The Rolling Stones to name a few.  He has also been a key contributor in new product research and development.  Will has been teaching truss, ground support and rigging classes with TOMCAT since 2007.

Will also represents TOMCAT within ESTA, the Entertainment Standards and Technical Association. He serves as a principal member of the Rigging Working Group and the Event Safety Working Group, member of the ANSI E1.21-2013 Stage Roof/Outdoor Structures task group, and member of the ANSI E1.2-2012 Aluminum Truss and Towers task group.
 

Jeffrey M. Reder, P.E., S.E.

Clark-Reder Engineering, Inc., est. 2009 Principal and Co-Founder

Mr. Reder’s personal design experience is in a wide variety of entertainment structures, such as performance and pavilion roof structures – both temporary and permanent, aluminum truss grids, temporary and permanent seating risers, sound delay and video wall support structures. Mr. Reder also has extensive experience in the design and analysis of complex aluminum structures.

In addition to his extensive experience with entertainment structures, Mr. Reder is an expert in the design of conventional building structures. He has personal design experience with structural steel, prestressed and post-tensioned concrete, masonry and wood framing.


Personal Structural Design Experience:

Holiday Inn Express – Columbus, Ohio: four-story wood-framed hotel on concrete spread footings.

ESPN Winter & Summer X Games – Aspen, Colorado & Austin, Texas: numerous unique scaffold and steel and aluminum truss structures.

NFL Super Bowls 2012-2019 – various locations: temporary outdoor structures

Mad Tea Party – Disneyland Resort, California: structural design stage gantry system, stage hoists and structure, front of house hoists and support structures.

Coachella Music and Arts Festival 2009 – 2019 – Indio, California: main stage roof supporting over 100,000 pounds of rigging gear

Gulf Coast Jam Main Stage Roof 2018 – Panama Beach, Florida: temporary aluminum truss structure

K2 Temporary Aluminum Concert Roof: Engineered in 2008 and utilized in all 50 states

Electric Zoo Festival – New York, New York: temporary structures used in the technical production of outdoor entertainment events.

Zac Brown Band – Detroit, Michigan: temporary outdoor concert roof

Luke Bryan Tour – Minneapolis, Minnesota: temporary outdoor concert roof


Associations:

American Institute of Steel Construction (AISC)

Professional Lighting and Sound Association (PLASA)

Precast Prestressed Double Tee Concrete Parking Garages


Publications:

July 2006 Structural Magazine


P.E./S.E. Licenses:

Arizona (SE), California, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Massachusetts (SE), Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, New Jersey, Nevada (CE/SE), New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon (SE), Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia, Washington, Washington DC, West Virginia, Wyoming, and Puerto Rico.

Bill Sapsis

Bill Sapsis, President of Sapsis Rigging, Inc., began his career in 1972. His work on Broadway includes the original productions of A Chorus Line and The Runner Stumbles. Bill opened Sapsis Rigging in 1981 and has grown the company into a multi-faceted installation/production/service company with clients on six continents.

Bill’s articles and lectures on rigging and safety can be found in numerous publications worldwide. He has authored two books; Heads and Tales and Entertainment Rigging for the 21st Century.  Bill is the chair of the ETCP Arena Subject Matter Experts and a member of the ETCP Council.  He serves on ESTA's Technical Standards Committee and is co-Chair of the ANSI accredited Rigging Working Group. Bill sits on the Board of Directors for the Behind the Scenes Charity.

Bill is a USITT Fellow and a member of ABTT. He is a founding member of the Long Reach Long Riders, an industry based charity motorcycle group. He is the Executive Producer of BackStage Pass, a video interview series on YouTube, an organizer of the ESTA/USITT New World Rigging Symposium and the Executive Director of the North American Theatre Engineering and Architecture Conference (NATEAC).

Do not get him started talking about his home in Vermont.  Or his kids.