Twenty-five years ago, there was a young Ohio State graduate with an idea and the makings of a business. Today, that business has grown from its humble beginnings dealing in affordable stereo kits to become one of the leading businesses specializing in “high-end residential technology.”

Scott Ranney said he built his first pair of speakers in his dorm room after his roommate moved out with the stereo and speakers during his freshman year at OSU. He said soon after, other students began to ask him to build them speakers. In those years, his business was known as the Underground Speaker Company. This was the first step of the business that later became Progressive Audio.

Ranney said after graduating from OSU in 1978 with a triple-major in production operations management, transportation and logistics and marketing, he and a partner decided to expand the business and shorten the name of it to The Speaker Company. Ranney said they leased a 500 square-foot building on East 13th Street the summer they graduated and started to manufacture speaker kits.

In 1980, Ranney bought his partner out and changed the name of the business to Progressive Audio. Ranney said the store moved to its current location on N.orth High Street in 1982. Ranney said the store has changed a lot since its conception.

“There has been a complete industry change,” Ranney said. “We have gone from selling speaker kits to high-end audio to video to both, and now control systems.”

Ranney said his business is “a little bit older than Microsoft.” He said this to demonstrate how the technology Progressive Audio uses today was not even in existence when the company began.

Ranney said Progressive Audio now focuses on control systems and residential technology integration. He said this is basically integrating all the electrical systems of a home into one central control panel.

“We currently have a display on the second floor where we incorporate these ideas onto a touch panel on a plasma television,” said Michael Rice, an audio-video specialist at Progressive Audio. “It is called the Progressive Home.”

Ranney said this is just one of the many different displays in the store that occupies their three-floor, 10,000 square-foot building.

“This is a vintage luxury apartment,” he said.

The success of Progressive Audio has not changed or corrupted the character of Scott Ranney, said friend and longtime customer, Dr. Tom Hoffman .

“He is very unpretentious,” Hoffman said. “He wears blue-jeans and a T-shirt, and has a beard.”

“Our store has a friendly, knowledgeable and relaxed staff,” Rice said.

Scott Ranney’s wife, Terry Ranney, said her husband is a “good family man.”

Mr. Ranney said he and his wife have three teenage daughters and a good family life.

Ranney said he has many other interests outside of work, including snow skiing, sail-boating and racing Porsches. Ranney said he loves racing, and has raced his car at the Mid-Ohio racetrack. He is also a high-performance driving instructor.

“There are points in your life that are demanding time-wise. You just have to be able to balance them with the other parts of your life,” Ranney said.

Terry Ranney said the key to her husband’s success is his ability to look to the future.

“He is always ahead of the curve on things,” Rice said. “He is very good at seeing how products will fit into what we do.”

Progressive Audio has only one location on North High Street, but they are in the process of opening a new office in Cleveland, Ranney said.

Ranney said his plan for Progressive Audio in the future “evolves around Signature Media Group.”

Signature Media Group is merging with Progressive Audio and companies in Massachusetts, Washington D.C., Florida and Illinois.

He said he would like this group to expand to all 25 of the major metropolitan markets.

Ranney had some advice for graduating students: “Just keep looking for opportunities. The hard one will probably be the right one.”