Founded in 1985 by Lou Mazza at his home in Queens before moving to Westchester County soon after, Corporate AV https://corporate-av.com is a leader in audiovisual production services, celebrating 40 years in the business.
“Every day we handle audio, video, lighting, staging and streaming for our clients,” said President Joe Guilderson, who started as an account executive for Mazza – having moved from Boston in 2005 to join the company, which he bought a year later. “Our job is to help our presenters communicate to large audiences and specifically within the corporate, hospital and health-care, education and nonprofit communities.”
Corporate AV does this by building “stages,” that’s to say it stocks high-powered projectors and screens of every size; it has dozens of microphones and speakers; it has miles of cables to connect them all and drapery in five different colors to enhance the presentation. It’s the only production company in the area, he added, to house this amount of equipment, with trucking capability and in-house staff to manage it.
From its Elmsford headquarters, the company serves not only the tristate area but the country:
“We have an extensive partner network in all of the major U.S. cities and ship equipment and technical staff to support our clients. For our virtual events, the company has interacted with presenters in Europe, Asia and Australia.”
Its sales, finance, marketing and operational teams are full-time staff. CV’s technical team, however, is a mix of full-time and part-time employees as well as independent contractors. So the company has a full-time team of 16 people, and a part-time team of approximately 150 people. At the top, he himself, a controller, and director of operations are all heavily involved in the day-to-day work, which has benefitted from its location, he added:
“I’ve been in Elmsford and Westchester for my entire 20 years. Logistically, Elmsford is an ideal location for our client base. Westchester has been a tremendous community, with many like-minded partners and a great location for our staff to raise their families. It is expensive in comparison to other areas, food, property taxes, services, etc., but we have always had great support from our county officials.”
And from the staff and public as well: “Hitting 40 years is an incredible milestone, and it’s all thanks to our amazing team and loyal clients. We’ve loved being a part of our clients’ stories, and we’re excited to keep pushing the boundaries of what’s possible in AV.
“LED technology, AI applications and online payment processing are the current hot topics – but there will certainly be more to come,” he said, adding that the great thing about his team was that not only did it expect change; it thrived on it.
“We are adding more staging design options and production services as we speak, and are constantly looking to add more value for our clients. Today it’s design, tomorrow – who knows?”
