Transformers

Transformers

Entrepreneurs Frank Clemente and Lynn McGhee create memories for companies, organizations and other customers by taking meeting rooms and turning them into a blaze of color, texture and sound.

by Dave Szymanski | Tampa Bay Editor

One of the partners burned out on an earlier career in interior design and went into mortgage banking.

Another ran a custom costume design business, was betrayed by a group of partners and planned to head home to Tennessee.

But brought together by friendship and common interests, Frank Clemente, 46, and Lynn McGhee, 47, decided to go back to their creative roots and try entrepreneurship again.

So in 1998, with a $500 loan from Clemente's sister, they opened conceptBAIT, an event decorations business on South Beach. The name means a design that attracts people. It is known for wrapping chairs, tables and other items in stretchable fabric and lighting them up.

It did the decorations for a bridal show at the Florida Botanical Gardens. At that event, it booked a bar mitzvah and two weddings.

Ten years later, the business, now headquartered in St. Petersburg, is doubling revenues, catering to meetings from companies such as Raymond James, Tech Data and Outback Steakhouse as well as nonprofit events, weddings and bar mitzvahs. It has always been profitable, even in the first year. In 2007, revenue was about $4 million.

The company has its own in-house sewing, floral, lighting and linen departments because it wants to maintain quality and control costs. It now has 33 colors of spandex to wrap 1,000 chairs, tables and other objects. The company has clients as far as California and it is planning several Super Bowl events in Tampa.

This November it will stage one of its most dramatic events to date. Pavilion, the annual high-end fundraiser for the Tampa Museum of Art, will take place atop a downtown Tampa skyscraper and conceptBAIT will create a Middle Eastern theme for it.

On the horizon: plans to rent upscale event furniture; the opening of a Charlotte, N.C. office and the opening of its own two-story special events building in Pinellas County.

Roots

Before conceptBAIT, McGhee, originally from La Follette, Tenn., had been in the special events industry for 22 years. He had been traveling with a dance company, designing and creating their costumes.

Using his talent for sewing, McGhee and some business partners formed Lynn's Custom Creations in Hollywood, Fla., for costumes and spandex linens.

Meanwhile, Clemente left his Cuban-born parents in Arcadia, Calif., who wanted him to run the family jewelry business. Clemente became an interior designer. Worn out from the demands of that industry, he went into wholesale mortgage banking for Chase Manhattan, which transferred him to Boca Raton.

Eventually, McGhee's partners sold the company. McGhee was going home to Tennessee. But he got a call from Clemente about starting an event decorations design firm.

"I convinced him, I was in South Florida, I said, 'no one is doing this, why not give it a year and see,'" Clemente says. "Reluctantly, he said okay."

So they started the company, conceptBait - which comes from a design decoration concept to create bait to draw people to events - and all McGhee wanted to do was create spandex linens. Then someone asked for decorations for a bar mitzvah. It quickly became clear that there was a demand for custom event decorations.

Unlike interior design, where many people might have input into an ongoing process, event design was more defined.

"I liked it because it was a one-shot deal, and it was over," Clemente says. "It wasn't a job where you have all these chiefs. The event is designed. It's installed. And it's taken down."

Tired of the congestion of South Florida, the partners moved the company to Ybor City in Tampa, then to St. Petersburg, and business increased.

"We are on top of the world," Clemente says. "Tampa Bay has really embraced us."

Its biggest event to date was a meeting for the top producers at Liberty Mutual at the Grand Hyatt in Hawaii. There were 600 employees, plus their families.

About 40% of its business is corporate events, 40% is weddings and 20% is non-profit events and galas.

Lessons, motivation

The biggest lesson for Clemente was to be on top of the company's financials. There is a pending lawsuit involving a former employee and a missing $300,000.

"Now we are paying more attention to it," he says. "Processes are in place, so not one person can do it all. It gives us a piece of mind."

Clemente is driven by a decision he made to make a business of his own work. His father predicted he would return to run the family jewelry business.

"My biggest regret is that he passed away without having seen this," Clemente says. "I didn't want to become my dad. He was a workaholic and often didn't have time for us. I have become my dad. I'm a workaholic. But I've improved on it. I take vacations. I enjoy life. But I've still got a lot to prove."

While there are other event planning companies, conceptBAIT doesn't believe it has any direct competitors on the Gulf Coast that do exact what it does.

"We feel the quality, price and attention to detail set us apart," Clemente says.

With growth and expansion plans under way, would conceptBAIT like to go national?

"I would love to, I really would," Clemente says. "Our biggest goal, one day, is we'll do the governor's ball at the Academy Awards. It would be kind of cool going back home to California."

SUMMARY

Company: conceptBAIT

Industry: Event planning and decorating

Key: Transforming rooms into visual themes to create a lasting impression.