By James Chevrette
The top industry awards were once again presented by Mobile Electronics Magazine to some of the industry’s finest. There were many new faces in the award categories and a few old ones. A notable mention of the evening was our industry’s first female Rookie of the Year. The evening ended with a lot of laughs and a few tears.
The much coveted Installer of the Year award went to T.J. Carlson of Musicar Northwest of Portland, OR, Retailer of the year went to Laketown Speed and Sound of Draper, UT. The Most Improved Store went to Sudbury Car Audio for the fourth consecutive time! It was mentioned, “Dude, how bad was your store?”
Rookie of the Year went to Meghan Watson of Vernon’s Signature Audio of Lubbock, TX, again making her the first female Rookie of the Year for our industry. Best Online Presence went to Traffic Jams Motorsports of Bufford, GA.
Here are the other celebrated winners for the 2026 Industry Awards presented during KnowledgeFest in Las Vegas Thursday evening.
Top Vendor Awards
Distributor of the Year: Dow Technologies
Rep Firm of the Year: 12-Volt Specialist
Sales Rep of the Year – Mike Blackwell
Autosound & Processing – Sony
Accessories & Materials – Metra
Infotainment Multimedia – Sony
Security, Safety & Driver Assistance – Firstech
Marine Audio- Kicker
Motorcycle & Powersports – Cicada Audio
OEM Integration – ADS iDatalink Maesteo
Lighting – Lucas Lighting
Support Tech – Jason Ewing (great speech!)
Vendor on the year – Kicker
Top Retail Categories
Most Improved Winner – Sudbury Car Audio
Best Online Presence – Traffic Jams Motorsports
Best Customer Retention – Kartele Mobile Electronics
Customer Experience – JC Audio
Store Culture – Traffic Jams Motorsports
Customer Choice Award – Austin Moore
Customer Choice Sales – Jeremy “Taco” Patterson
Customer Choice Retailer – Speakerbox Autosound and Accessories
Expeditor of the year – Titan Motoring
Rookie of the year – Megan Watson
Trusted Tech – Fernando “Nando” Lopez
Sales Pro – Parker Lopez
Retailer of the Year – Laketown Speed and Sound
Installer of the Year – T.J. Carlson
Congratulations Fernando. Love watching you guys.