Jack(knife) of All Trades: How One Russian Immigrant Mastered His Craft
by Abby Bowman
“My boss likes to call me the pocket knife of the company, because I can do a little bit of everything,” says Maksim Kutsenko.
Kutsenko is a tinter for Sun Stoppers in Charlotte, North Carolina, and the 2025 International Window Film Conference and Tint-Off™ (WFCT) Architectural Competition winner. As a testament to his pocket-knife skills, he also placed second in the 2025 Automotive Competition.
The award-winning installer credits much of his versatility to owning a business for 10 years.
“It was a small business with just me … so I learned how to do both automotive window tinting and architectural window tinting to be efficient,” Kutsenko says. “You don’t have time to go back and redo work. I became a master at both to avoid that.”
Kutsenko says he’s learned a lot throughout his 25-year career, which he began as a junior in high school at the front counter of a Lightning Mike’s location.
“I was checking customers out and answering the phone,” he says. “We sold car parts and offered window tint. Then, we got into graphics.”
That’s when Kutsenko began transitioning from the front desk to more hands-on work, like applying graphics. One of the window tinters at the store also asked for his help.
“He hated doing removals,” Kutsenko says. “So he said, ‘Hey, you could make some money doing all the removals. I’ll let you do them, but you have to do a really good job.’”
Kutsenko eventually graduated from removals to tinting quarter windows, which he says is a bit backwards from most of his peers’ training. They learned how to do roll-down windows first, he says.
“After that, I started working at one of the company’s other shops,” Kutsenko says. “That’s when I got the chance to become a [full-fledged] tinter.”
Car windows had a higher degree of curves when he started tinting, says Kutsenko, which made learning how to shrink film to the windows the toughest part of his training process.
It was also his favorite part of learning to tint.
“I enjoyed the challenge, it was fun for me,” he says. “I think most tinters would say they like a challenge. We do the same cars over and over, so it’s fun when we get to do something different.”
That love of a challenge fueled Kutsenko’s desire to compete at the WFCT, he says, which he has done around six times. He says tinting in front of judges is an entirely different experience than working in front of customers.
“Customers don’t see what we see because their knowledge is limited,” he says. “Working in front of judges is a completely different challenge because they’re going to find even little things that a customer might be okay with, but they are not.”
Kutsenko’s pocket-knife qualities helped him prepare for a curveball at the 2025 Architectural Tint-Off™, where he won gold. The competitors had to tint windows split into irregular triangular panes.
“They didn’t tell us that the windows were going to be split like that,” he says. “That was a good challenge, because I think a lot of people expected it to be a standard commercial rectangular window.”
Kutsenko’s boss regularly assigns him jobs that require a lot of skill in both architectural and automotive film, which is how he accidentally ended up with the specific practice he needed for the split windows at the competition.
“Just a couple of days before I headed to Reno, I had a job with different-sized and shaped windows,” Kutsenko says. “So, I was lucky enough to kind of practice before I got there.”
With multiple Sun Stoppers locations nearby and new ones continuing to open, Kutsenko says the company’s presence in his area makes the partnership a natural fit.
“I get to cover for others at these shops when they’re sick or on vacation,” he says. “I get to work with a lot of different people, which helps me learn new things.”
Working at Sun Stoppers means that Mike Burke, the company’s founder, has been a constant in his life. Burke also founded Lightning Mike’s, the company that gave Kutsenko his career.
“I’ve worked with Mike since the beginning,” he says.
Kutsenko’s wife, Tracy Kutsenko, has been another constant. They’ve been together for 14 years, and she has attended many of his competitions.
“I feel like she gets more nervous about them than I do,” he jokes. “She gets such a worried look on her face. I tell her I have to be away from her for 30 minutes before the competition because I don’t want to get anxious too.”
Kutsenko is now ready to defend his current title and plans to compete again at WFCT 2026 in San Antonio.
Do you know someone who is a star among window film tinters? Then we want to hear from you with your nominations for “Film Stars.” Email Abby Bowman at abowman@glass.com your nominations.
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