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My trade show exhibit experience began young across the dinner 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 worked on were completed he'd take the household into New York City 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 different displays at the Nyc Stock market and the World Trade Center. Many other Sell Gold Irvine CA of his would be on display at trade shows at the New york Coliseum, Waldorf Astoria, or the newest York Hilton.

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

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

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

I jumped at his offer and was excited not to only be making $1. 50 an hour at the age of 14, but additionally to access work with my dad and commence 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 the ground, carefully peeling frisketed graphic panels, and mixing paints.

I knew right then and there that the exhibit business was where I needed to pay 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 significant career transition came when ECI won the newest Olivetti Underwood account and needed a merchant account executive to control their multiple product exhibits for more than 40 trade events each year. I applied, interviewed, and got the job. 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 intricacies to be an exhibit account executive and looking to Gold Buyers Irvine CA the future when, unsuspectingly, ECI was sold to IVEL, that is today an integral part of Exhibit Group. IVEL then moved the ECI plant to Brooklyn, New York. For me personally, it had been unreasonable to work in and travel to Brooklyn as I still enjoyed living an almost 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 absolutely essential, I thought moving to California may be a much better choice.

By having an eye for adventure, travel, and an urge to begin fresh, I sent a resume out to Stewart Sauter, an exhibit builder and show decorator in San francisco. I was hired following a great interview. I had contracted Stewart Sauter many 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 benefit. My job was supervising the setup, servicing, and dismantling of all exhibits delivered to Stewart Sauter from exhibit houses from throughout the country.

My tenure in San Francisco was short-lived, nevertheless , 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. He wound up offering me a job as their Corporate Trade Show Exhibits Coordinator in Bluebell, Pennsylvania.

Obtaining the possibility to jump from the vendor side of the business to the client side was a dream I had developed when i watched the entire staff at Exhibit Craft organize and clean up the shop in preparation for one of its client's visits. One day I believed to myself, "Someday I want to be the client. "

UNIVAC built and sold computers. Their trade show exhibit philosophy was to utilize live theatrical presentations, produced by the highly talented Hardman and Associates from Pittsburgh, PA, showing precisely 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 efficiently 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 by way of 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 understood early on that in reality a computer was just a machine and that it was the power 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 Trade events and Exhibits. This included supporting their Video Tape, Computer Media, Office Products and services, and Computer Peripheral sections. Right after arriving, Memorex decided to launch new audiotape products and services and I began working on their introduction at the Gadgets Show in Chicago.

The marketing strategy with this essential first trade show exhibit was to facilitate a dynamic live demonstration presenting the audible differences between new Memorex cassettes and that which was then on the market. We needed seriously 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.