ACT Entertainment Technical Services Celebrates New Beginnings and Honors Contributions

	(l-r) Dustin Barnes and Ryan Kanarek

As the new year begins, ACT Entertainment is marking two promotions and a retirement in the company's technical service department. CTO Mario Collazo is retiring from the firm while Ryan Kanarek has been promoted to director of technical services and Dustin Barnes has been elevated to the role of software support manager.

Collazo retired as CTO after 29 years of service. He joined ACT in 1996 and became CTO three years ago. "The technical service and support at ACT Entertainment is not only critical to our customers but vital to our culture as a company," says CEO Ben Saltzman. "We've been lucky to have leadership like Mario's nurturing that culture of service at ACT and luckier still to have people like Ryan and Dustin who have grown with it and will carry it forward."

"After nearly 30 years of service with ACT, Mario's role has been unique and will be difficult to replicate, but personally and as a team we're up for the challenge," says Kanarek as he celebrates his own ten-year anniversary with the company in 2025. He joined ACT in software technical support and moved up to software support manager in 2017.

"The stellar growth of grandMA3, the pandemic, and new product offerings have brought us to a place of new challenges and opportunities, and we're excited to provide some fresh perspectives and potentially new solutions to our users and customers who rightly hold our support to a very high standard," he says.

Barnes, who joined ACT in August 2021 to bolster the team's grandMA3 software support and has more recently become a zactrack product specialist, steps into the software support manager post previously held by Kanarek. "It's really exciting to be leading a team supporting an ever-expanding user base of professionals who are pushing the boundaries creatively -- and therefore often technically as well," says Barnes. "We have great manufacturer partners and a great crew here in North America, so this is an exciting new chapter for all of us."

"Dustin has shown himself to have a great head for troubleshooting and technical detail and he'll do an excellent job leading the software support team," notes Kanarek. "It's a huge boost to know we'll have each other's backs as we step into these new roles together."