| Conversation - Steve Luquire |
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| Written by Sam Boykin | |
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It wasn’t until a calamitous and embarrassing accident that Steve Luquire really started to hit his stride. It was the summer of 1988, and just hours after Charlotte proudly unveiled its new state-of-the-art coliseum as the “finest in America,” the facility’s 34,000-pound, $1.2 million scoreboard fell 55 feet and crashed to the coliseum floor. Even worse, the U.S. Olympic basketball team was scheduled to face off against an NBA all-star team at the new coliseum that very night. For Luquire, president of LGA, the marketing and PR firm managing the high-profile event, it was one of those worst-case scenarios come to life. But, as usual, timing and luck seemed to be on his side. Against the odds, work crews managed to clear all the debris and replace the damaged playing floor with the one from the old Charlotte Coliseum. And that night, promptly at 9 p.m., the game got underway as scheduled. “As heartbreaking as that was, it was an opportunity to take something traumatic and devastating and turn it into a positive,” says Luquire. “And that’s what the community did, and all of Charlotte benefited from it.” Luquire and his company didn’t make out too badly, either. LGA, which started as a three-man operation in 1984, is now one of the leading marketing and public relations firms in the region, with clients ranging from major corporations and global Fortune 500 companies to the Carolina Panthers and the PGA’s Wachovia Championship. And according to Luquire, they’re just getting started. “Honestly, I’ve never felt like I’ve ‘made it,’” says Luquire from behind his desk inside the sleek, glass and marble Rotunda Building in the SouthPark area. “That concept doesn’t make sense to me. Certainly there have been times when I’ve been proud and happy of what we’ve done, but every day presents new challenges, and I like that.” That kind of drive and passion has served Luquire well. Born in Durham, NC, Luquire was raised in a solid middle-class family and was somewhat of a jock and gym rat growing up. In high school he worked as a ball boy manager for the Duke Blue Devils and traveled with the basketball team to two NCAA Final Four tournaments. Following high school he went to Eastern Carolina University where he was captain of the soccer team his junior and senior years. When he wasn’t playing soccer he was studying political science. “It was a typical liberal arts, I don’t-have-a-clue-what-I-want-to-do major,” he says. “But it was during the Vietnam era, and it was a very compelling subject for me.”  Yet it was Luquire’s love of sports that set the scene for a fortuitous meeting that would put him on a new and promising career path. Between his junior and senior years at ECU, he attended a national junior football federation camp, where he met some executives from a Charlotte-based marketing and advertising company, Craftsman Graphics. Despite his lack of experience in the creative advertising industry, the executives encouraged the ambitious young Luquire to interview for an entry-level job. During his interview, the company showed Luquire an example of one of their projects. “They had a three-screen, 25-mm slide show about man lading on the moon,” he says. “At the time it was the new media, and I was blown away. I thought, I’ve got to be a part of this, and I begged them for a job.” Luquire landed the gig, and after graduating from ECU moved to Charlotte in 1971. “It took me about 2 years before I had a clue as to what I was doing,” he says. But Luquire stuck with it, and soon displayed a creative flair for business. Things were coming together in his personal life as well. He married his girlfriend, Vicki, in 1972, and the young couple started a family. After five years at Craftsman Graphics, Luquire was promoted to manager of national accounts, which required him to spend about half his time working in New York City. “That was quite an education,” he says. “You’re dealing with one of the highest levels in business, and that gave me a certain level of confidence at an early age. I figured if I could handle myself at that level I could deal at any level.” After a decade at Craftsman Graphics he was lured away by one of his New York clients, a job which required even more travel. “After a year I knew it wasn’t what I wanted to do,” he says. “By then Vicki and I had two young kids, so I started working on some different concepts and ideas.” Those concepts and ideas evolved into LGA (Luquire George Andrews), which he co-founded in 1984 with Clay Andrews, who also serves as executive creative director, and Tom George, who retired in the early nineties. “It was exhilarating getting the company started, and also a little scary,” he says. “But there’s a reason most companies don’t make it. They often think short-term. We were very careful, and looked at things in the long range.” That turned out to be a wise move because the business got off to a shaky start, as they hardly made any money during their first year of operation. In fact, Luquire says it took him eight years before he got back to where he was financially prior to starting the company. “I had had some early success and thankfully saved some money,” he says. “My parents were from the Depression and were always very conservative, and their lessons stuck with me. We’ve lived in the same house since 1986.” Since co-founding LGA 23 years ago, Luquire has been on the frontlines of some of Charlotte’s biggest changes. After helping successfully pull off the potentially disastrous Charlotte Coliseum grand opening in 1988, the city’s powers-that-be gave Luquire the nod to put together a presentation to bring the NCAA Final Four to Charlotte. Once again, hard work and timing paid off. LGA’s presentation did the trick, and in 1994 Charlotte hosted the heralded event, which was celebrated with the “Street of Champions” Uptown festival. This event, also managed by LGA, in many ways marked the beginning of Uptown’s renaissance, which at the time was a dead zone with just a smattering of bars and restaurants and hardly any residential development. Another of Luquire’s favorite LGA-managed events was the 1999 Transatlantic Business Dialogue, during which 120 CEOs from Europe and America as well as several prominent government officials, including Al Gore, gathered in Charlotte to discus how to boost trade and investment opportunities. Landing such a high-profile, sought-after business conference—previous host cities included Seville, Chicago and Rome—was yet another feather in Charlotte’s cap. LGA helped further bolster the Queen City’s image as a growing national contender when the company produced the “Charlotte USA” advertising campaign in 2002, which touted how Charlotte provides a unique balance of business strength, global accessibility and exceptional quality of life. And just this year, LGA developed for Center City Partners their new “Find Your Center” campaign, which helps get the word out about Uptown’s many nightlife, dining, shopping opportunities and cultural events. For all the work they’ve done, LGA has received many accolades, including the Gold World Medal and Grand Award from the New York International Film and Video Festival; multiple Gold and Silver ADDY Awards, the Design Excellence Award from PRINT magazine; and Awards of Excellence from the National School Public Relations Association. Most recently, Luquire received the 2007 Silver Medal Award, the Charlotte Ad Club’s highest honor. In addition to his business contributions, Luquire has been very involved with community projects and charitable organizations. He’s chair of the Charlotte Regional Partnership and is on the executive board of the Charlotte Chamber of Commerce. His current philanthropic endeavors include serving on the board of directors for the Salvation Army and the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Foundation. He also serves on the board of Park Sterling Bank. “If you invest in the community they’ll invest in you,” he says. But for all he’s achieved, Luquire says that looking back his most satisfying accomplishment is the culture that he and others have been able to create and build at LGA over the past 23 years. “I’ve never been afraid to hire people smarter than me, which isn’t very hard to do,” he says with a laugh. “We have a very diverse company, but we all believe in the concept and brand of trust. You have to live it everyday. If you can build a reputation, business will come.” At 58, Luquire has had both hips replaced, and his hair is more salt than pepper. But he still moves with an energetic urgency, and his eyes widen excitedly whenever he talks about his favorite subjects—like the Carolina Panthers. “I’m a football nut,” he says proudly. While he may be slowing down a little, Luquire stays active. One of his favorite pastimes is traveling-- to places like Whistling Straights in Wisconsin and Bandon Dunes in Oregon to play golf. But his biggest passion and priority, and one that is displayed in framed photographs that clutter his desk, remains his growing family, which now includes grandkids Colman, 3, and Holden, 1. “They keep me pretty busy,” he says. As far as what’s next, Luquire says he’s excited about what the future holds for both his company and Charlotte. “This city’s evolution is incredible; it’s been like a renaissance. And I feel blessed and privileged to have worked and lived here during this time to see it all happen.” ~ Sam Boykin |
