The One Where a Company is Hooked

Apollo Customer from the Beginning

Our company has been in existence since 1995; We virtually grew up with Joel Nichols and Apollo Design® Technology. We’ve shared many years, gobos, great tales, and photographs – nearly every image on our website is either Apollo stock or custom.

One tale was of Goodwin’s Studio 54 themed party in 2000. It almost sent Joel to physical therapy. Using metal gobos with gel was not going to give us the vibrant color we wanted at this event, and there were not any full-color gobos that complimented the Disco era theme.

Crushed dichroics were just coming onto the market, so Joel came up with an idea. We selected some funky stock metal images we liked and created a few custom ones. Joel made the gobos as black-and-white glass and then painstakingly glued various pieces of colored glass onto the image.

Not only did it work, but the pattern was so three-dimensional it was truly “groovy,” and the color popped. Joel would later joke that he got hand cramps from holding the tweezers as he surgically placed the glass chips onto the gobos.

The result was well worth it. After that, we were hooked.

Our Relationship with Apollo’s Sales and Customer Care Reps

We took a field trip to Fort Wayne, Indiana, once and had the pleasure of meeting the Apollo Design® team. We toured the offices and assembly floor and enjoyed a lovely dinner with some of the more memorable characters from Apollo.

Keith Kankovsky immediately pops to mind. Keith was so passionate about all the products that were in development that we took to calling him “Mr. Gadget.” And then there was the wine – dandelion wine – which he was very proud of making.

Rita LeFavour is always a delight – so engaging and pleasant to work alongside. It is not uncommon for Rita to pass through town and check in on us. She always brings fun swag. We will never need to purchase a coffee mug ever again thanks to Rita.

Mary Harrison has this unique way of making a person feel like they are the only customer in the world that she represents, so we asked her if we were her largest client. She politely replied, “Well, number two maybe, but you see I cover the Florida region and have this tiny little client called X.”

Mary likes to have photographs of her clients near her phone. Her logic is this gives her a connection to the person on the other end of the line. It humanizes them. I think our picture included our three cats and a stack of Apollo gobos I was filing. Potter Cat, a 30-pound cutie (no, that is not a typo,) especially loved to play with the Apollo Gel Wraps.

Step Right This Way: The Show That Never Ends

We still have almost all the gobos Apollo has ever made for us. Someday we will open an Apollo Design® Technology museum. Admission will be free with a donation of “Apollo Chicklet Gum.”

Happy Anniversary! It has been a pleasure growing with you!

Goodwin Lighting, we are grateful for your business over the years! Thank you for the remarkable pictures you sent to us, as well as for sharing many gobo designs like Frosted Sunrays and Cartoon Martini Glasses with our dealers and customers.