HambyParent47

My trade show exhibit experience began while very young around the dining room table. My father, Joseph LoCascio, would get home each night with fascinating stories about designing and building displays and exhibits at various New york exhibit houses where he worked as graphic artist.

When the projects he done were completed he would take your family into Nyc and show us the results of his artistic handiwork, which regularly included IBM's Madison Avenue window displays, Crane's display of new bathroom/kitchen fixtures, Allied Chemical's lobby displays, and various displays at the New York Stock market and the World Trade Center. A great many other Sell Gold Irvine CA of his would be on display at trade shows at the Nyc Coliseum, Waldorf Astoria, or the brand new York Hilton.

My admiration for my father's artistic talents started when I would be invited to become listed on him for his local freelance work on weekends. I'd help him load the car along with his art supplies and watch in amazement as he laid out and hand-lettered a bank's new window sign in gold leaf, or perhaps a company's name on a truck door, or a new sign for a local church.

The exhibit building business was cyclical, and there were times when work was scarce plus some shop workers had to be laid off for a couple weeks. Other times there is too much work, Cash For Gold Irvine CA which called for hiring more individuals and working overtime and weekends to accomplish exhibits.

My possiblity to work with my dad at Exhibit Craft, Inc. in Long Island City, came if the shop was on a full-time working arrangements, including weekends, to accomplish multiple exhibits in time for the National Hardware Show in Chicago.

I jumped at his offer and was excited to not only be making $1. 50 one hour at the age of 14, but also to get to work with my dad and start learning the exhibit building business from the ground up. My work that first weekend - and many more that followed - included cleaning silk screens and squeegees, resurfacing art tables with new paper, sweeping a floor, carefully peeling frisketed graphic panels, and mixing paints.

I knew immediately that the exhibit business was where I wanted to spend my career. During high school and after military service I worked at Exhibit Craft, Inc. working my way up the ladder, which included Silk Screen Production, Assistant Production Manager, Shipping and Receiving Clerk, and Assistant to the Purchasing Manager.

A major career transition came when ECI won the new Olivetti Underwood account and needed a merchant account executive to handle their multiple product exhibits for more than 40 industry events annually. I applied, interviewed, and got the work. To my amazement, I soon found myself in planning meetings at Olivetti's corporate headquarters at 1 Park Avenue in New york city.

At 22, I was enjoying a dream job, learning the the inner workings of being an exhibit account executive and looking to Gold Buyers Irvine CA the future when, unsuspectingly, ECI was sold to IVEL, which is today a part of Exhibit Group. IVEL then moved the ECI plant to Brooklyn, Ny. For me personally, it had been unreasonable to work in and happen to be Brooklyn as i still enjoyed living an nearly carefree and independent lifestyle at my parents' home in Bergenfield, Nj, where I was raised. But if moving out for a job was absolutely essential, I thought moving to California could be a better choice.

Having an eye for adventure, travel, and an urge to start out fresh, I sent a resume out to Stewart Sauter, an exhibit builder and show decorator in San Francisco. I was hired after a great interview. I had contracted Stewart Sauter often times in the past to setup and dismantle Olivetti Underwood's exhibits and had established an excellent working relationship with Mr. Tony Panacci, who I might work for. My job was supervising the setup, servicing, and dismantling of most exhibits delivered to Stewart Sauter from exhibit houses from through the country.

My tenure in San francisco was short-lived, but because while setting up exhibits at the Fall Joint Computer Conference at Brooks Hall, I met Mr. Del Kennedy, Advertising Manager at UNIVAC Division of Sperry Rand. That he ended up offering me work as their Corporate Trade Show Exhibits Coordinator in Bluebell, Pennsylvania.

Obtaining the chance to jump from the vendor side of the business to the client side was a dream I had developed as I watched the entire staff at Exhibit Craft organize and clean up the shop in preparation for starters of its client's visits. 1 day I said to myself, "Someday I wish to function as the client. "

UNIVAC built and sold computers. Their trade show exhibit philosophy was to use live theatrical presentations, produced by the highly talented Hardman and Associates from Pittsburgh, PA, to show exactly what computers could do. Karl Hardman and Marilyn Eastman, creators of the cult film "Night of the Living Dead, " developed scripts, scenery, and AV materials, and hired and trained actors and a complete professional production crew to effectively present UNIVAC's computer presentations. We staged the presentations on an hourly schedule in a theater with seating for around 60 visitors. If the presentation ended, the doors would open and visitors would walk via a display area where salespeople, managers and tech support team professionals made personal product presentations, answered questions, and completed sales lead forms for additional information or sales calls.

UNIVAC's marketing experts understood early on that in reality a computer was only a machine and that it was the energy of its various computer programs that made the most sense to booth visitors. In the often cacophonous trade show exhibit environment, getting attention and making prospects and customers comfortable while sharing complicated and often esoteric information required total get a grip on of the exhibit environment.

A year later I accepted a job with Memorex (which stood for Memory and Excellence) in Santa Clara, California, as their Corporate Manager of Industry events and Exhibits. This included supporting their Video Tape, Computer Media, Office Services and products, and Computer Peripheral business units. Immediately after arriving, Memorex decided to launch new audiotape products and I began working on their introduction at The Electronic devices Show in Chicago.

The online strategy for this important first trade show exhibit was to facilitate a dynamic live demonstration presenting the audible differences between new Memorex cassettes and that which was then in the marketplace. We needed to show prospects how Memorex cassettes would outperform recorded music when compared to reel-to-reel 3M and BASF audiotape, which at the time dominated the worldwide audiotape market.