CRAIG T. KOJIMA / CKOJIMA@STARBULLETIN.COM
John and Melanie Guild are the proprietors of a staging and production company for business and cultural events.
John and Melanie Guild had built a high-profile
business doing audio-visual work for
corporations, church groups and entertainers
They are the lights, camera and special effects at events ranging from weddings and political rallies to over-the-top rock concerts and special corporate functions organized by some of the most well-known companies.
They are the lights, camera and special effects at events ranging from weddings and political rallies to over-the-top rock concerts and special corporate functions organized by some of the most well-known companies.
Even, the world's richest man, Bill Gates, made an appearance on a giant LED wall thanks to state of the art-projectors owned by the company.
But despite high profile clients ranging from Coca-Cola, Chevron and Mercedes Benz to the Red Hot Chili Peppers, few people understand what it is that the company does, says its founder, John Guild, who launched John Guild Communications in 1989.
A major conference or convention can take days of work to set up for the audio-visual firm and when the big moment finally happens, everything must work seamlessly following a minute-by-minute script.
Hawaiian Island Ministries has worked with Guild for a number of years. The group holds its annual conference at the Hawaii Convention Center. Last year, the attendance was 5,000, said Mary Vinson, the group's executive director.
"You only get one chance for the sound and video to work flawlessly. It's like running a big production," she said
The company has been working with Hawaiian Island Ministries since the days when it had its first conferences at Central Union Church, Vinson said. As the numbers grew, they progressed through various hotel ballrooms before finally needing a venue the size of the convention center.
"We consider John a partner to our business. He also works with us throughout the year on much smaller events. Whenever we need anything, he's there. He's just super to work with," she said.
With a degree in electrical engineering, Guild had been working for a large audio-visual company based in San Francisco. In 1978, the firm asked him to open an office in Honolulu.
CRAIG T. KOJIMA / CKOJIMA@STARBULLETIN.COM
John and Melanie Guild's two teenage children have shown no interest in the family business. In fact, they object to too much shop talk around the dinner table.
But by 1988, the company was having problems with its mainland operations and eventually closed up shop. Business was still good in Honolulu. Guild had steady work, especially from hotel clients who urged him to launch his own company. The first office was in the basement at the Hawaiian Regent Hotel.
Today hotels with an assortment of social and business events to accommodate still represent about 30 percent of the audio-visual company's business, Guild said.
Luckily for Guild, City Bank was willing to give the company chance in the beginning after other banks said no.
"We'd already been turned down by the others," Guild said.
The company started out with a loan of $70,000 to purchase its first equipment.
About 6 years ago, Guild was joined by his wife Melanie who handles sales and marketing for the company. After the company's long-time sales representative quit, her husband suggested she join him. At first intimidated by the technical nature of the business, Melanie, who had been busy raising the couple's two children, was reluctant. But after attending a trade show on the mainland with John, she was hooked and set about learning all she possibly could about the business.
The company has two offices, its main office and warehouse space on Waimanu Street and a satellite office at the Hapuna Prince Hotel to serve Big Island clients. There are eight employees including John and Melanie.
Working together has been a positive experience, although it was a little stressful at first, the couple say.
The couple's children, now 18 and 15, don't always appreciate their parents involvement in the business and are quick to remind them when there's too much shop talk at the dinner table.
"Our daughter is really good at changing the subject," he said.
Neither child has expressed an interest in working in the business, said Melanie.
The Guilds say business boomed all through the 1990s.
"It was night and day seven days a week," John said.
With more work than they could handle, much of the company's profits went straight back into purchasing new equipment. State of the art equipment in their industry is a huge, but necessary investment, the couple said. For example, the huge LED screen made up of 18 3-foot by 4-foot panels cost about $500,000.
Early in 2001, the Guilds' efforts were recognized when they won a Family Business of the Year award from the Family Business Center at the University of Hawaii at Manoa.
Clients who they had worked for in Hawaii also began requesting the company for mainland events and were willing to pay to ship equipment back and forth. Microsoft flew them to Seattle for an event because they wanted to make use of two recently purchased state-of-the-art projectors, John said.
Another Atlanta-based health care consulting company they had worked for at a Big Island conference signed them to a six-show-a-year deal for various corporate events planned over 10 years.
But business came to an abrupt halt soon after the events of Sept. 11.
"Just the week before we were hiring additional sound and video people. But after Sept. 11, we got to the point we didn't want to pick up the phone there were so many cancellations," Melanie said.
Over the years, the company had also built a good share of business from Japanese clients wanting to stage events in Hawaii. That business disappeared over night.
"Right after Sept. 11, (Japanese companies) just thought it wasn't right to have fun," John said.
Compared to business immediately before Sept. 11, corporate budgets appear to have been cut in half, said John. Even concerts, perhaps because of the additional security precautions now required, don't seem to sell as many tickets as before, he said.
However, in spite of the downturn, there is growing business in two areas -- churches and the military, Guild said.
New Hope Christian Fellowship uses half of the company's LED panels to broadcast to an overflow crowd who attend services at Farrington High School auditorium every Sunday.
The company also secured a military contract for the installation of an integrated system to simulate various scenarios.
And another bright spot is the growing amount of Web-based teleconferencing companies are requesting as an alternative to traveling for conferences.
Still the Guilds wonder if business will ever return to pre-Sept. 11 levels.
