PRS Guitars Works the Crowd at Experience PRS 2012

By: Rick Landers

Paul Reed Smith – photo credit: Mike Davis

PRS Guitars hosted around 2,600 guests this past weekend at it’s annual trade show, Experience PRS 2012, that included, celebrity performers, dealers and international distributors, PRS fans and members of the media.

Working the logistics of the event, were nearly half of the Paul Reed Smith Guitars workforce, mostly decked out in red PRS t-shirts, making it easy for visitors to ask for directions, get information on factory tours and any number of other things to make the trade show enjoyable and memorable. They were everywhere and they were not only helpful and courteous, but, enthusiastic about being a part of the largest individual guitar builder trade show in the world.

Everyone from Paul Reed Smith himself to the newest hires were on-board to help. The guy you asked for directions could have been Jack Higginbotham, President, PRS Guitars, or any number of PRS employees. You may have been helped out by someone like the young man who stopped me to make sure I’d check out what he called “the lungs” of the PRS factory – a science fiction looking behemoth ventilation system that was huge and other worldly looking.

Smiling at the beer ticket table were staffers, Laura Barber, Accounts Payable Manager, and Elizabeth “Sissy” Lins, Accounts Receivable Manager, while Alexis Arizzi, Graphics Designer and Advertising Coordinator, roamed the crowd with her big lensed Canon.

Jeanne Nooney and Judy Schaefer, were busy working public and press relations and spotted throughout the event was the ever-present Beverly Fowler, Director of Artist Relations & Events, who’s the master orchestrator of all things happening. The entire crew made sure that the trade show was a superb coupling of business, family and friendship.

Maybe most surprising was, after the event, you didn’t hear much self-satisfaction about how well the event went, as much as staffers asking, “What can we do better next year?”

That’s the kind of corporate culture most business leaders strive to achieve, yet few attain.

In an attempt to thank the entire PRS crew and give them their due, here’s a gallery of some of the PRS family that we bumped into during the three days: