Ex JVC Leader Joins Cicada, Recoil Audio

Cicada Audio (the recent motorcycle audio start up) and Recoil Audio, both owned by Lucky Star Trading, have appointed a new president.

Ron Trout, who retired from JVC Mobile in April as Director of Sales, is the new president of Lucky Star Trading.

Trout succeeds original founder, the late Larry Frederick, as president but he noted, “Nobody can replace Larry, he was the product visionary and technical guru that conceived Cicada.”  The company has since hired engineers to help fill that part of Frederick’s role.

Trout headed up JVC Mobile sales for the last 12 years. Prior to that he served for 20 years at Rockford Fosgate, where he launched the company’s technical training school RTTI, founded the accessory division Perfect Interface, and served as VP of New Product Development.

Larry VanSickel, CEO of Lucky Star Trading, noted, “…Ron was also a close friend of our late founder, Larry Frederick. They shared many hours together as founding members of IASCA, technical gurus, and friendly competitors.”

Cicada’s Tech Support and Operations Director, Forrest Hamberlin also worked under Trout in the past at Rockford’s Perfect Interface Division.

To be clear, Trout said he fully retired from JVC and was planning where to live when he got the call from VanSickel asking him to join the company.

Cicada is in a high growth position at present, after launching a few years ago. It now has 12 employees. “What I bring to Cicada is following business practices. They are growing at an unbelievable rate. It’s not doubling in sales, they are quadrupling every year,” Trout said.

The company just began selling through Crutchfield.

Trout envisions that growth continuing as long as the motorcycle market stays healthy.  “A lot of the traditional 12 volt dealers are missing out on this.  Probably 80 percent of the [motorcycle audio] business is not done through the traditional 12 volt channel, so they are not scratching the surface.“

Justin Miller has also been hired as new Regional Sales Manager for the Southeast and Western regions for Cicada and Recoil Audio.  Miller has a strong background in powersports and motorsports.

“Miller’s role will involve overseeing sales strategies, building customer relationships, and ensuring the successful market penetration of both Cicada Audio and Recoil Audio products across his assigned region,” said a press statement.

Recoil Audio sells widely overseas and through Amazon and is expanding into dealer sales in the US. Trout sees strong potential upside for Recoil as well.  “The brand does extremely well with a certain segment on Amazon. It has high awareness with young people who are value shoppers.”  Trout is setting up programs that are favorable to distributors for a higher end segment of Recoil products to be offered through two step distribution in the US.