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My trade show exhibit experience began young round the dining room table. My father, Joseph LoCascio, would come home every evening with fascinating stories about designing and building displays and exhibits at various Nyc exhibit houses where he worked as graphic artist.

When the projects he labored on were completed he'd take the household into New york city and show us the outcomes of his artistic handiwork, which frequently included IBM's Madison Avenue window displays, Crane's display of new bathroom/kitchen fixtures, Allied Chemical's lobby displays, and differing displays at the New York Stock exchange and the World Trade Center. Many other Sell Gold Irvine CA of his would be on display at trade shows at the Ny Coliseum, Waldorf Astoria, or the brand new York Hilton.

My admiration for my father's artistic talents started when I would be invited to participate him for his local freelance work with weekends. I'd help him load the car with his art supplies and then watch in amazement as he laid out and hand-lettered a bank's new window register gold leaf, or a company's name on a truck door, or perhaps 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 needed to be let go for a few weeks. Other times there was too much work, Cash For Gold Irvine CA which needed hiring more folks and working overtime and weekends to complete exhibits.

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

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

I knew right then and there that the exhibit business was where I wanted to spend my career. All through 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.

An important career transition came when ECI won the newest Olivetti Underwood account and needed a free account executive to control their multiple product exhibits for a lot more than 40 industry events annually. I applied, interviewed, and got the task. To my amazement, I soon found myself in planning meetings at Olivetti's corporate headquarters at 1 Park Avenue in Nyc.

At 22, I was enjoying a dream job, learning the ins and outs to be an exhibit account executive and looking to Gold Buyers Irvine CA the near future when, unsuspectingly, ECI was sold to IVEL, which is today a part of Exhibit Group. IVEL then moved the ECI plant to Brooklyn, New york. For me, it was unreasonable to work in and go Brooklyn as I still enjoyed living an very nearly carefree and independent lifestyle inside my parents' home in Bergenfield, New jersey, where I spent my youth. But if moving out for a job was a necessity, I thought moving to California might be a much better choice.

With 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 Bay area. I was hired after a great interview. I had contracted Stewart Sauter many times in the past to set up and dismantle Olivetti Underwood's exhibits and had established an excellent working relationship with Mr. Tony Panacci, who I would work for. My job was supervising the setup, servicing, and dismantling of exhibits delivered to Stewart Sauter from exhibit houses from throughout the country.

My tenure in San francisco bay area was short-lived, however, because while creating 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 finished up offering me a job as their Corporate Trade Show Exhibits Coordinator in Bluebell, Pennsylvania.

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

UNIVAC built and sold computers. Their trade show exhibit philosophy was to use live theatrical presentations, developed by the highly talented Hardman and Associates from Pittsburgh, PA, to show just 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 about 60 visitors. When the presentation ended, the doors would open and visitors would walk through a display area where salespeople, managers and technical support professionals made personal product presentations, answered questions, and filled out sales lead forms for additional information or sales calls.

UNIVAC's marketing experts comprehended early on that in reality some type of computer was just a machine and that it was the ability of its various software applications that made the most sense to booth visitors. In the frequently cacophonous trade show exhibit environment, getting attention and making prospects and customers comfortable while sharing complicated and sometimes esoteric information required total control 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 Trade Shows and Exhibits. This included supporting their Video Tape, Computer Media, Office Products and services, and Computer Peripheral sections. Soon after arriving, Memorex decided to launch new audiotape services and products and I began focusing on their introduction at The Consumer Electronics Show in Chicago.

The marketing strategy because of this essential first trade show exhibit was to facilitate a dynamic live demonstration presenting the audible differences between new Memorex cassettes and what was then in the marketplace. We needed to show prospects how Memorex cassettes would outperform recorded music when comparing to reel-to-reel 3M and BASF audiotape, which during the time dominated the worldwide audiotape market.