Bill Steigerwald, CSEP

Back when I worked on the student activities board in Chapel Hill, NC, organizing outdoor concerts, dances, and coffeehouses, they didn’t even have the term, “special events”.  They called it “programming” – not very inspiring.

The inspiration really started for me in 1982.  I was working for Marriott Hotels in Washington, DC, and my Dir. of Catering asked Joe Jeff Goldblatt, a founding father of special events, to talk to our staff. He opened our eyes to this new phenomenon –companies spending thousands of dollars on décor, themed entertainment, and theatrical lighting for a “special event”. I was enthralled.

In 1988, there were decorators and talent agencies, but event producers were still pretty much unknown. I was working in New Orleans handling national conventions, and here were major events, with national contractors, but hardly anything worked to a plan. I thought - there should be a job in this.

I gave up the hotel business in 1992, and my wife and I moved to Houston for family reasons; while we looked for jobs back on the East Coast. But our best options turned out to be here, and I went to work with an event decorator/theatrical designer named Bob Howery, a legend and a mentor to me. Using that experience, I moved into a role managing the special events department of a new company called IDEAS with a small lighting, staging, and sound inventory. But our projects outgrew the inventory, so in 1996, I left IDEAS and started EVENTions in the extra bedroom of our house.

In this business, your projects define you. With our designing, planning, problem-solving, management, and supervisory skills, we offered ourselves to a wide range of projects that grew our one-man business to five, with a steady increase in projects and challenges. I would consider these our milestones over the years:

1996 - A series of themed convention events for Sigma Pi Epsilon gave us our big start.

1997 - We made an agreement with the Houston Marathon to promote and manage the Health & Fitness Expo. We also rented our first office in Shepherd Plaza in the Sandman Building and I hired an assistant.

1998 - Mitsubishi Caterpillar Forklift hired us to develop and produce their new product dealer meetings, a huge break. We added our first Project Manager.

2000 - We hired a sales manager, Debby Butler, who soon contracted Bertek Pharmaceuticals, for the start of a great relationship.

2001 - Health and Fitness Expo is up to 200 booths by 2001 and Bertek was mushrooming, so we added a database administrator. This is also when I got the promoting bug, so we tried a few public ventures (The Advertising Show, Baby and Kids Expo, and SportsFest - they did … not so well). HEB began its push into Houston and gave us a steady supply of wonderful openings to produce for the next four years.

2002 - We established a partnership with the City, Hermann Park, and H-E-B to develop an annual, month-long holiday festival called Holiday Lights in Hermann Park

2003 - Bertek Pharmaceuticals doubled our business with full-blown, national sales conferences in Florida, along with smaller incentive trips and upper management meetings

2005 - Lopez Negrete Communications opened the door to true event marketing projects, community outreach events for Tysons Foods.

2006 - Comerica Bank gave us a great opportunity, letting us prove our idea that seasonal, old-time festivals would be a perfect outreach for them and give them a major return (over $3M!)

2007 - A Dallas marketing firm entrusted us to produce a large-scale client hospitality event featuring Herman’s Hermits (yep – Mrs. Brown, Kind of a Hush, …)

Aside from building the business with these great projects, we maintained steady professional growth as well. We have participated in the GHCVB, the Greater Houston Partnership, and in our professional association, the International Special Events Society. Personally, I was VP of Programs, President, and Immediate Past President (four times) in our local chapter, and on the international level, Chair of the Marketing/Communications Committee. All of these positions have helped me develop professionally, and stay current with newest event trends, and products.

Today, we are focused on the creatively challenging corporate and convention events, event marketing, and event consultation. Our experience and innovative abilities make us invaluable and our marketing expertise makes us an even better ally to corporations and marketing firms. EVENTions is moving ahead, brining more innovation to the industry, growing its specialty in event marketing, and turning clients’ events into rewarding experiences for them and their attendees.

Bill Steigerwald
CSEP