PRI strengthened its grip on Jacksonville’s audio/visual production industry when it acquired local advertising agency AAT Design Thursday. The merger joins two past Small Business Leaders of the Year winners in PRI’s Randy Goodwin (1997-98) and AAT Design’s Bonnie Barnes (2000-01).
“Bonnie is very reputable in the community and she’s mostly known for the graphic design and marketing aspect of what she does,” said Goodwin, president and owner of PRI. “I really needed a face for that company because my head just gets so filled up with so many things. I just needed someone that people can call who they trust and believe and that I also trust and believe in.”
PRI is a composite of three companies—Presentation Resource, Images Showmakers and Premier Events—that work in unison to provide comprehensive event production, audio/video rentals, graphic design and video production. Barnes joins PRI as the director of marketing and communications and will focus her attention on the company’s Images Showmaker division.
“Randy and I have known each other quite a while through the Chamber [of Commerce],” said Barnes. “He had a problem on his end — on the higher end. He has the introduction to the corporate clients, but he isn’t able to service them fully because he didn’t have a staff in his Images Showmaker department yet. He had an art director but he didn’t have anybody talking to them, holding them by the hand, helping them out. So we got to talking...”
PRI’s need for an expanded design division in the company coupled with a sagging economy made the merger a strategically and economically savvy move.
Barnes brings four employees, 14 years of business ownership experience and several hundred clients with various needs to PRI. AAT Design focused on graphic design and advertising with small and medium-sized business clients as well as providing video teleconferencing services.
“We helped them with their identities and growing and working their way to the next level,” she said. “Somebody who might come in and say, ‘I’ve had my business four or five years and I want a new image; I want a new logo.’ They’ve dealt with their home grown one for all this time. So we would take them and we would do an entire package for them — a makeover.”
As director of marketing and communications, Barnes will plug a hole in PRI’s services.
“What Bonnie does would play into our events,” said Goodwin. “If I need banners or name tags or an event logo or any kind of printing that would have to do with an even — even tickets — they would do all that.”
Added Barnes: “It was really a blend because he does so much with the entertainment, so much with the industry. I can take care of all my clients with everything I do for them currently, but now I can offer them video, I can offer them radio and be able to produce it in-house. I can expand to another level.”
PRI’s acquisition of AAT will also boost its video teleconferencing abilities.
“I’ve dabbled in video teleconferencing,” said Goodwin. “[Barnes] has seemed to have great success at video teleconferencing. I found out that she did quite a bit of video teleconferencing. I was amazed.”
Goodwin started Presentation Resource in 1994 as a basic audio/visual company. Through several mergers and acquisitions over the years, Presentation Resource has become a comprehensive event production company, employing over 60 full time employees and 40 part time workers.
“We’ve grown quite a bit through the years,” he said. “We produce the Jaguars games. We produce the Gator Bowl game, the Florida/Georgia game and all that stuff. We also have the relationship in which we produce most of the events that happen in city facilities like the Convention Center, the T-U Center and of course the stadium and coliseum. The root of who we are is producing corporate shows. That’s a big part of who we are.”