HiViz helps first responders work more safely and effectively after dark by providing reliable lighting technologies for emergency vehicles. Their team is dedicated to developing the most innovative and high-quality LED scene lighting solutions on the market. Here, they share with us how KeyShot helps keep their thriving business on track.
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What’s the inspiration behind HiViz?
Our company was founded by serial entrepreneur, volunteer firefighter and professional EMT Sam Massa in 2011. Sam was frustrated with his experiences of working on the side of the road at 2am and not being able to see due to faulty, low-quality lights on his department’s fire truck.
With a background in stage lighting from his former DJ business and an interest in off-road/towing lights from his biofuel business days, emergency vehicle lighting was a natural transition for Sam after joining Lillington Fire Department. Sam quickly got to work on bringing new, higher-quality LED scene lights for fire trucks and ambulances to market and HiViz Lighting, Inc was born.
Fast forwarding a decade and some change, our FireTech brand of lights boats an entire portfolio of the most innovative, reliable, and durable scene and warning lights for fire apparatus and ambulances, backed up by the industry’s only advanced exchange lifetime warranty. Keeping our mission of helping first responders work more safely and effectively after dark close to heart, we pride ourselves on delivering the best possible customer service and trying to put a personal touch on everything we do.
Today, the company is run by the husband-and-wife team of CEO Sam Massa and COO Kaoma Massa. We work hard, and have fun doing it because our work matters.
What is your company proud of achieving?
We hold our own against competitors who are 10x the size and have played a large role in pushing the industry forward – we disrupted the ‘old guard’ and did what everyone said we could not. We’re also super proud of the first year we finally hit $5 million in revenue; that was a huge milestone that made the company feel more established in the eyes of our founders.
What are some projects you use KeyShot for?
We used KeyShot heavily for our 2023 tradeshow preparations. We used it to make dramatic images for our booth design, the product photos for our new releases in our catalog were renderings, and we even used KeyShot to build out video animations that were played on a massive video wall at the big tradeshows! We also use KeyShot for web assets and instruction manual visuals on a regular basis.
How has utilizing KeyShot helped XO3D save time, money, and enhance quality?
Sam: Many of our new products are still in development. This last year we’ve been in the position of needing visual assets of these products to communicate their existence to the world leading up to their release, but we had no physical products on hand. Our graphic designer, Marina Hunter, leaned into KeyShot and has learned how to make really realistic visual representations of our future products. This has given us the ability to create marketing materials as well as internal and external trainings. Without this tool, we likely would have had to wait until after the release of these products to have any visual assets.
What KeyShot features are most helpful to you?
Marina Hunter, graphic designer: The most helpful feature for me is the multi-material feature since our lights have different LED color options and even different housing color options. This helps me be able to set up different colored lights and switch back and forth super easily! It also helps when I am fine tuning a clear plastic lens because it takes a lot of trial and error to find the correct settings depending on the lighting and environment. With the multi-material I can easily duplicate a material and adjust settings and then compare the differences to decide on the one I like best. I also am a big fan of using the queue to set up a whole bunch of renderings and letting the computer work overnight!
Why would you recommend KeyShot?
Marina: KeyShot has been the hero in my world this year as we needed to get print materials sent out before we could get hands on physical prototypes to photograph. It gave me the tools to create renderings that replaced product photography and kept us on track to meet deadlines. It became the answer to so many questions that were up in the air for our team and for that I highly recommend KeyShot to others. It could be the answer you have been needing.
See more at https://hivizleds.com/
