Video Team for 2014 Electrical Inspectors DVD Library

Mike Holt is an author, businessman, educator, speaker, publisher and National Electrical Code expert. He has written hundreds of electrical training books and articles, founded three successful businesses, and has taught thousands of electrical Code seminars across the US and internationally. 

His company, Mike Holt Enterprises, has been serving the electrical industry for almost 50 years, with a commitment to creating and publishing books, videos, online training, and curriculum support for electrical trainers, students, organizations, and electrical professionals. His devotion to the trade, coupled with the lessons he learned at the University of Miami’s MBA program, have helped him build one of the largest electrical training and publishing companies in the United States.

His broad experience has given him a unique perspective on building a profitable business that is committed to its customers and to quality. From an early age, Mike understood the need for working on your business, not just in your business. As a businessman, he understands the need for continuous education in order to keep current and stay relevant. As an educator, he has a commitment to help instructors improve their skills in the classroom and enrich the learning environment for their students. His deep understanding of the trade, dynamic presentation style, and ability to connect with students are some of the reasons that he is one of the most sought-after speakers in the industry.  

Mike is committed to changing lives and helping people take their careers to the next level. He has always felt a responsibility to provide education beyond the scope of just passing an exam. He draws on his previous experience as an electrician, inspector, contractor and instructor, to guide him in developing powerful training solutions that electricians understand and enjoy. He is always mindful of how hard learning can be for students who are intimidated by school, by their feelings towards learning, or by the complexity of the NEC. He’s mastered the art of simplifying and clarifying complicated technical concepts and his extensive use of illustrations helps students apply the content and relate the material to their work in the field. His ability to take the intimidation out of learning is reflected in the successful careers of his students. 

Mike’s commitment to pushing boundaries and setting high standards extends into his personal life as well. He’s an eight-time Overall National Barefoot Waterski Champion. Mike has more than 20 gold medals, many national records, and has competed in three World Barefoot Tournaments. In 2015, at the tender age of 64, he started a new adventure—competitive mountain bike racing. Every day he continues to find ways to motivate himself, both mentally and physically. 

Mike and his wife, Linda, reside in New Mexico and Florida, and are the parents of seven children and seven grandchildren. As his life has changed over the years, a few things have remained constant: his commitment to God, his love for his family, and doing what he can to change the lives of others through his products and seminars. 

Victor Ammons was born in North Carolina, but has lived primarily in New Jersey since the age of five. He spent his high school and college vacation times working in a small, family owned electrical contracting firm. Vic married his high school sweetheart after his sophomore year at North Carolina State University, from which both graduated with honors two years later. After four years in the Army, during which time their first child was born in Germany, Vic and Anne alternated getting MBA degrees. They now have three married children and six grandchildren.

After a number of years of running the family electrical contracting business while his father’s health declined, Vic trained and turned the business over to his brother-in-law. He then returned to the engineering field in which he had been trained. Vic is a registered Professional Engineer in New Jersey and has served in an engineering management role for several engineering and architectural/engineering firms. He’s now a senior electrical engineer for Jacobs in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and Morristown, New Jersey.

Vic and Anne now reside in west central New Jersey in an area with a few dozen families among over a thousand acres of woodlands. Yes, there are still woodlands in New Jersey; we haven’t gotten around to paving them all yet. Vic and Anne, who will celebrate their 50th anniversary in 2019, are avid square- and ballroom-dancers, and are presidents of their local cluband the Northern New Jersey Square Dance Association. Vic is also a woodworker and an amateur beekeeper. Both are active in several capacities in their church.

Mike Culbreath has devoted his career to the electrical industry and worked his way up from apprentice electrician to master electrician. He began by doing residential and light commercial construction, and later did service work and custom electrical installations. While working as a journeyman electrician, he suffered a serious on-the-job knee injury. As part of his rehabilitation, Mike completed courses at Mike Holt Enterprises, and then passed the exam to receive his Master Electrician’s license. ln 1986, with a keen interest in continuing education for electricians, he joined the staff to update material and began illustrating Mike Holt’s textbooks and magazine articles.

Mike started with simple hand-drawn diagrams and cut-and-paste graphics. When frustrated by the limitations of that style of illustrating, he took a company computer home to learn how to operate some basic computer graphic software. Realizing that computer graphics offered a lot of flexibility for creating illustrations, Mike took every computer graphics class and seminar he could to help develop his skills. He’s worked as an illustrator and editor with the company for over 30 years and, as Mike Holt has proudly acknowledged, has helped to transform his words and visions into lifelike graphics.

0riginally from south Florida, Mike now lives in northern lower Michigan where he enjoys hiking, kayaking, photography, gardening, and cooking; but his real passion is his horses. He also loves spending time with his children Dawn and Mac and his grandchildren Jonah, Kieley, and Scarlet

Brian House is Vice President of Digital and Technical Training at Mike Holt Enterprises, and a Certified Mike Holt Instructor. He is a permanent member of the video teams, on which he has served since the 2011 Code cycle. Brian has worked in the trade since the 1990s in residential, commercial and industrial settings. He opened a contracting firm in 2003 that designed energy-efficient lighting retrofits, explored “green” biomass generators, and partnered with
residential PV companies in addition to traditional electrical installation and service.

In 2007, Brian was personally selected by Mike for development and began teaching seminars for Mike Holt Enterprises after being named a “Top Gun Presenter” in Mike’s Train the Trainer boot camp. Brian travels around the country teaching electricians, instructors,military personnel, and engineers. His experience in the trenches as an electrical contractor, along with Mike Holt’s instructor training, gives him a teaching style that is practical, straightforward, and refreshing.

Today, as Vice President of Digital and Technical Training at Mike Holt Enterprises, Brian leads the apprenticeship and digital product teams. They create cutting-edge training tools, and partner with in-house and apprenticeship training programs nationwide to help them reach the next level. He is also part of the content team that helps Mike bring his products to market, assisting in the editing of the textbooks, coordinating the content and illustrations, and assuring
the technical accuracy and flow of the information.

Brian served as the chief editor for this new edition of Understanding Electrical Estimating and assembled the team for the video production, and content review of this textbook and its supporting resources. Brian is high energy, with a passion for doing business the right way. He expresses his commitment to the industry and his love for its people in his teaching, working on books, and developing instructional programs and software tools.

Brian and his wife Carissa have shared the joy of their four children and many foster children during 25 years of marriage. When not mentoring youth at work or church, he can be found racing mountain bikes or SCUBA diving with his kids. He’s passionate about helping others and regularly engages with the youth of his community to motivate them into exploring their future.

Ryan Jackson is a combination inspector in the Salt Lake City, Utah, area who began his career as a carpenter while in high school. He began doing electrical work when he was 18 and, at the age of 23, Ryan landed his first job as an electrical inspector and subsequently became certified in building, plumbing, and mechanical inspection (commercial and residential), as well as building and electrical plan review. Two years after becoming an inspector, he was approached by a friend in the area asking him to fill in at an electrical seminar for him. After his first class Ryan was hooked, and is now a highly sought after seminar instructor. He has taught in several states, and loves helping people increase their understanding of the Code.

In 2005, Ryan met Mike Holt in Salt Lake City, and they became friends immediately. He helped Mike with his Understanding the NEC, Volume 2 videos and began editing his books as well. He believes that there are only a small handful of opportunities that change a person’s life and career, and meeting Mike was one of them.

When Ryan isn’t working, he can often be found in his garage turning wood on his lathe, or in the kitchen where he enjoys wine making. Ryan married his high school sweetheart, Sharie, and they have two beautiful children together: Kaitlynn and Aaron.

Eric Stromberg has a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering and is a professional engineer. He started in the electrical industry when he was a teenager helping the neighborhood electrician. After high school, and a year of college, Eric worked for a couple of different audio companies, installing sound systems in a variety of locations from small buildings to baseball stadiums. After returning to college he worked as a journeyman wireman for an electrical contractor.

After graduating from the University of Houston, Eric took a job as an electronic technician and installed and serviced life safety systems in high-rise buildings. After seven years he went to work for Dow Chemical as a power distribution engineer. His work with audio systems had made him very sensitive to grounding issues and he took this experience with him into power distribution. Because of this expertise, Eric became one of Dow’s grounding subject matter experts. This is also how Eric met Mike Holt, as Mike was looking for grounding experts for his 2002 Grounding vs. Bonding video.

Eric taught the National Electrical Code for professional engineering exam preparation for over 20 years, and has held continuing education teacher certificates for the states of Texas and New Mexico. He was on the electrical licensing and advisory board for the State of Texas, as well as on their electrician licensing exam board. Eric now consults for a Department of Energy research laboratory in New Mexico, where he’s responsible for the electrical standards as well as assisting the laboratory’s AHJ.

Eric’s oldest daughter lives with her husband in Zurich, Switzerland, where she teaches for an international school. His son served in the Air Force, has a degree in Aviation logistics, and is a pilot and owner of an aerial photography business. His youngest daughter is a singer/songwriter in Los Angeles.