Memories of a Promising Young Man

Vlad grew up as a young boy in Russia where he and his family suffered physical persecution as Christians.  His father was a Seventh Day Adventist minister, a religion that was deplored under the Communist regime.  Vlad would come home severely bruised from his beatings by other students.  At age 14, Vlad and his family made their way to freedom in the United States.

Vlad got his first job in Napa in 1997 while still a student at Pacific Union College. Bob Burton of CAV Media was doing a stint as Professor, and met Vlad the first day of class.  That day Bob happened to need a helper on a camera shoot and Vlad took the job that was to last for 10 years and lead Vlad into a brilliant technical career here in Napa.

His job at Burton's CAV Media was a great place for Vlad to learn.  CAV Media has the reputation of always staying up with the state of the art. For example, they were among the early users of Apple's Final Cut Pro, a revolutionary film/video editing instrument from Steve Jobs. Now ten years later it is the standard of the industry. By adopting these state of the art instruments Burton was able to make Napa a top level video company. Thus CAV was also able to give Vlad exposure to the latest technical products of the day.  Vlad was a quick learner and soon became a great contributor.

Bob Burton and Vlad were at the scene at just the right time to do full length recordings of Spain's greatest Zarzuelas performed at the Jarvis Conservatory.  They recorded 16 of these Zarzuelas over a ten year period. For all these years Vlad was able to contribute to these high quality recordings of Zarzuelas as well as other works of art performed at the Conservatory. Today, many opera companies who are planning to perform Zarzuelas will start by viewing one of these DVD recordings.

After ten years working with Bob Burton's CAV Media, Vlad was encouraged by his sister to move to Hollywood where his talents would be in high demand. But Vlad always maintained he preferred Napa as long as there was some opportunity for him here. Finally his opportunity arrived and he was able to stay in his favorite city by becoming General Manager and Technical Director of the Jarvis Conservatory a place where he could use his technical talents, learn new administrative talents, and still serve as a technical assistant to CAV Media.