 Jacob joined the audio-visual department at his school.His first theatrical sound design role came when St. Ignatius was staging performances of "High Button Shoes", "The Mikado" and "The Desperate Hours".Without realizing it, Jacob put together a sound system design much like those being used at the time in Broadway plays – a system based on a few Altec 639 ribbon microphones positioned as foot mics along the front edge of the stage, amplified into Altec Voice of the Theatre loudspeakers.