When AV Connections, Inc's corporate journey began, our founders, North Carolina entrepreneurs Brad and Marjorie Luckhart were in their twenties, in a city not their own, with three young children. They had arrived in North Carolina for Brad's job, with a hotel audio visual firm. And so it went, for a while. The usual struggles of young parenthood and the normal obligations of a job with a corporation.

1984 dawned and it was going to be a much different year than any before it. While they Brad and Margie might have been young, they were intrepid and sharp as whips. Brad was offered the opportunity to by the North Carolina franchise of the firm he worked for at the time. And with Margie's agreement, they approached a bank and eventually a deal was brokered. They were twenty-seven years old.

Big, terrifying gamble for two young guns, for sure, their young family relying on their ability and stick-to-it. Eventually, they stepped outside the hotel audio visual rental provider business and into events, galas, weddings. With each change to remain competitive, the business has had to morph and learn fast. Audio visual is a technology game when it is all said and done, and you have to remain willing and able to learn. If you don't value technology in this industry, you've no hope for the future. And more than being able to utilize technology and feel comfortable with it, the business has to make nimble decisions about acquiring new AV and lighting inventory and jettisoning the has-been equipment. There were always huge national companies breathing down AV Connections, Inc. neck as it grew; success was an even mix of fingers-to-the-bone hard work and unyielding cleverness. Brad and Margie learned never to stay in once place, in any sense with the business, for long.

Mentally, they have always "kept their running shoes on" as so many corporate trainers always like to say. They could be the best examples for success in the Who Moved my Cheese maze of finding one's way in times of change. And while Brad and Marjorie have all the best strategy for making a business work, they are also the argument that perhaps not everyone can do what they've done. We watch them to learn, we are fascinated by what drove the business to multiple branches in Virginia and then South Carolina, with how they have rode out drought and being weeded with work: It's not all business plans, customer service, and accountants. AV Connections, Inc. is North Carolina entrepreneur proof that there is something inside a person which determines how well you can drive your business. There are people built for the work.

Brad and Marjorie live, eat, and breathe the businesses they have built. It is not a subject dropped at the crossing of the threshold of their home. The business is welcome to contribute and challenge the household and to thrive like any other person or thing they have created and nurtured. They think about it, they talk about it, they act for it with the same regularity with which they breathe. It is part of their core.

In that way, we can't all do what they have done. This success is not assigned evenly to  all mankind with the you-can-do-anything blessing of the heavens. Not every person is going to work this hard, be this clever, or create an environment of complete immersion.

This is a common definition of "entrepreneur": An individual who, rather than working as an employee, runs a small business and assumes all the risk and reward of a given business venture, idea, or good or service offered for sale. The entrepreneur is commonly seen as a business leader and innovator of new ideas and business processes.

The definition lacks, in the most critical way, the truth about what an entrepreneur is, at least in our experience with the most talented of the league.

2014 is about to wrap up and it has been another great year for NC AV by AV Connections, Inc. As 2015 arrives we want to take a moment to thank all of our clients and contributors for a great 2014, our 30th year in business. We have welcomed many new AV rental clients for corporate conferences, business meetings, and special events. We have enjoyed working on many new job sites with the great teams who manage them. And we have met new world's full of talented professionals. We continue to be grateful for our tremendous return-clients who have been with us for decades.

As 2015 arrives, our goals are firstly as they have always been: Continue to hone our culture of excellence. Deliver the best and most reliable AV and lighting customer service in the United States.

AV Connections, Inc. handles every type of AV rental or lighting scenario. In 2014, we handled meetings of 8, and graduations for tens of thousands. No AV job is too small or too big.

We are pleased to report we doubled our number of employees in 2014. We are blessed with incredibly talented teams of executive and technical personnel who continue to challenge themselves and in turn push AV Connections, Inc. forward.

We are so very aware of how much we have to be grateful for in client and relationship and we are humbled and strengthened by the trust placed in us every day to help you deliver your message. We wish you and yours the happiest and healthiest of new years for 2015. We will be there to support you with care and excellence in 2015 as always. We thank each and every one of you.

AV Connections national national AV rentals and event lighting is thirty this year, our history and culture of excellence prevails. We have been blessed with great customers and business communities. We've loved every exciting moment of founding and expanding AV Connections' AV rentals and event lighting businesses in North and South Carolina.

We were founded in 1984 by Brad and Margie Luckhart in Winston-Salem, North Carolina to serve the hotel conference industry there with AV rentals and presentation services. In growing our business over these thirty years, we have expanded to serve more conference and event markets nationally with branch offices. We've added employees who became long term contributors to our success and grew to see our Charleston, SC branch headed up by our son, and now Vice President, Jared Luckhart.

We have continued to serve the AV conference technology rental market by broadening our inventories of national AV rentals and event lighting selections in each branch. We continue to increase our market shares through dogged pursuit of excellence and challenging ourselves to provide the next great piece of technology to our clients along with the customer service excellence which is the cornerstone of our business philosophy.

Over the years, we have seen many competitors come and go. Our dedication and constant attention to detail in every area of our business has kept us nimble and prepared. Some tiny part of thirty years as a most successful national AV rentals and event lighting company owes to luck, but it is the tiniest part of our business. It is hard work that brought us this far, and we know we can count on it, attention to detail, and reliability to see us ahead for many more generations. An easy road, it never is, a worthwhile one which we love, it has been at every moment.

AV Connections thanks thirty years of dedicated customers for their business and looks forward to each day ahead with same energy of that first day in 1984.

 

We have a 43-year cancer survivor on staff and we were pleased to be the NC audio visual company selected to provide outdoor grand opening event AV for the Novant Health Cancer Center Opening in Winston-Salem, NC.  At AV Connections, Inc. we're always mindful of how lucky and blessed we are; but this involved a charity initiative particularly close to our hearts.

As providers of grand opening event AV in NC, we are always striving to get the event or gathering's message across with flawless clarity. At this afternoon ceremony the grand opening event AV was distinctly and deeply meaningful to our own group. Our NC AV Connections Inc. office manager, Marilyn, whom many of you talk with to book your NC audio visual rentals and events, is a 43-year cancer survivor. Marilyn was contacted sometime ago by the Pink Heals Tour of the Triad and we knew this was a charitable mission we needed to support.

The Pink Heals Truck Tour moves across regions and nationally supporting new initiatives in saving women from cancer and supporting their families as they become survivors and heroes. For the opening event this past weekend, the Pink Heals fire trucks and police vehicles were out in force which was so inspiring! The fire trucks have been signed by survivors and their families and are very moving so, we've posted as much as we could for you to see and understand. The next time you see a pink fire truck, you'll surely be as moved as we were at the event.

Up to the AV Connections Inc. microphones this weekend stepped the Honorable Mayor of Winston-Salem, NC and the Fire Chief. Several members of the Winston-Salem, NC fire department donned their pink fire gear in a nod to the PinK Heals mission as well.

Such powerful stuff, it was really the most moving of events for us as a company. You can lean more about Pink Heals and how it can benefit your community with a local chapter here. The more you can help, the more you help members of so many families in your own communities.

Meet Marilyn if you have not before! Marilyn is not only our incredible office manager in North Carolina, but also a survivor. And now you see why we bow our heads deeply for this cause.

We are thrilled to be providing the corporate conference audiovisual and lighting for the Vector Marketing summit at the Sheraton Downtown Atlant Hotel and Convention Center this week. This large-scale national conference has brought together our teams from our North and South Carolina branches of AV Connections. We met up in Atlanta, GA to get rolling together on the corporate conference audiovisual. After a night of loading in and a full day of set up, you see the incredible results!

Thousands of corporate conference and meeting attendees were treated to top-line event technology presentations on our innovative corporate conference audiovisual technology.

On site for our equipment were:

JBL speakers
Yamaha audio mixers
Shure wireless microphones
Sanyo projectors
Extron 506 switchers
Tascam DVD players
9x12 rear surface screens
7.5x10 rear surface screens

Here is an inside look at the night of on-site loading and a little of our set up early on the job:

Vector Marketing is an amazing client and we were pleased to be the conference audiovisual and lighting vendor of choice for their presentations and events. It was a great week in Atlanta, GA (which was actually kind of chilly for Hot-lanta) and we look forward to returning for Vector, the convention center, and other Atlanta, GA clients soon.

For all your conference audiovisual and lighting needs in Atlanta, GA, as well as SC and FL. AV Connections should be your first call. We are budget savvy, customer-service driven, and have thirty years experience in hotel and convention center audiovisual and lighting. Once AV Connections has been one ajob for you, we'll always be your first and last call. Quality is the only way.

Visual Aids Electronics of North Carolina, Inc. (VAE of NC) a premier national provider of large-scale audiovisual staging and production for conferences, meetings, and events, located in Winston-Salem, is pleased to announce a brand merger with its wholly-owned subsidiary, AV Connections, Inc.of Charleston, South Carolina.

As of January 1, 2014, Visual Aids Electronics of North Carolina, Inc. will now also be known as AV Connections, Inc.

VAE of NC opened in 1985 as a licensee of another national audiovisual concern. In 2002, the experienced owner-management group of VAE of NC opened AV Connections, Inc.of Charleston, also a premier provider of large-scale audiovisual rental and event production, under the same ownership and management. The success of the AV Connections, Inc.brand, started by Brad Luckhart (President and CEO of VAE of NC, now AV Connections, Inc.) and managed by Vice President Jared Luckhart in Charleston, has led to the decision to merge these two strong businesses under one brand name and to end the use of the VAE brand going forward.

The ownership and leadership of AV Connections, Inc. of Winston-Salem is unchanged. Brad Luckhart, in partnership with his wife, CFO Marjorie Luckhart, continues to manage both the North Carolina and South Carolina operations from the AV Connections, Inc. (formerly VAE of NC) corporate headquarters located at 245 Executive Park Boulevard. In the process of this brand merge, we are also pleased to have increased and elevated our management group with Jared Luckhart’s promotion to Vice President.

AV Connections, Inc. continues to maintain a quality-based customer service approach to the national business of audiovisual production. Clients can continue to expect the highest level of professionalism and technical experience available to them in the audiovisual production and rentals fields. AV Connections, Inc.’s trusted teams of technical professionals will continue to provide the best audiovisual event experiences throughout the southeast and across the United States, as they have for twenty-eight years.

AV Connections, Inc. is pleased to announce this brand merger and welcomes all requests for further information at 336-768-5454.

Contact: Cat Coughlin, cat@bluelightpublicrelations.com