PROFILE
John Coniglio
By Andrew King
J
ohn Coniglio knows the value of strong
relationships, and that’s been key to
his long and successful career in AV
system sales.
Consider that, professionally speaking,
Coniglio has been with show services and
system integration firm Westbury National
for nearly 20 years, and has worked alongside
mentor Brock McGinnis for nearly 30. On the
personal side, he and his wife Jacqueline have
been married for 21 years and together for 26.
Now, as a senior account representative
with Westbury, Coniglio is developing and
maintaining relationships on a daily basis. “My
favourite part about the industry is sitting
with a client that needs Westbury to solve
a problem,” he shares. “Listening, learning
the client’s business, designing with our
team, devising a solution, and then seeing
the clien t 100 per cent satisfied is the most
rewarding part of my work.”
Coniglio was born and raised in Guelph,
ON, and had his first experience with
production technologies in the AV depart-
ment at John F. Ross Collegiate Vocational
Institute. Some productions required him to
rent some equipment from the local audio
house, Palmer Audio. “I took an interest in
audio equipment and shortly after started
working for Palmer Audio as a stage hand,”
Coniglio recalls. “The more shows that I
worked, the more I learned about audio
systems, and soon, I was a lead technician
and mixing engineer.”
The sea change in his career came a few
years later with the transition from tech to
sales person. “I had been working in a club
and we’d just put in our first intelligent light-
ing system,” Coniglio explains. “There was
one light in particular that kept breaking
down and I had to make several trips out to
the vendor that was servicing the fixtures,
which is how I met and got to know Brock
McGinnis, who at the time was the owner of
Novatec. He couldn’t figure out why I wasn’t
in sales and said I should consider giving up
being a technician. Soon after, I was working
for Brock as a sales representative.”
After seven years with Novatec, the
company dissolved but McGinnis and Co-
niglio continued working together at West-
bury. “The rest is a 19-year history of some
truly amazing projects that have been built
by this incredible team,” Coniglio enthuses.
Lately, he’s kept plenty busy with cor-
porate AV integration projects in addition
to being active with performance venues,
sports and hospitality, and other entertain-
ment applications. “Video is certainly a very
large portion of the work,” he notes, “but
audio still has many opportunities.”
Coniglio admits it can be a challenge
keeping pace with the constant evolution
of the technologies in which Westbury
specializes. Lately, that’s necessitated an
understanding of networking and IT. Of
course, he also needs to be able to com-
municate those technical concepts with his
clients, and share ways that they can be put
to use in today’s business world.
He particularly enjoys when his proj-
ects involve some creativity on his part.
“I think that’s the biggest reason I like the
design-build projects,” he shares. “It allows
my creative side to flourish with the client
in any market.”
Outside of his work with Westbury,
Coniglio moonlights as a “personal Uber
driver” for his kids – 19- and 17-year-old
daughters and a 15-year-old son – “minus
the getting paid part.”
He and his wife share a passion for phys-
ical activity and can be found together at
the gym several times per week. As another
testament to the importance of longstand-
ing relationships in his life, Coniglio plays
hockey every Thursday with the same group
that’s been skating together for 12 years.
“Anything to do with fitness, I’m in,” he says
bluntly. “I’m willing to try almost anything,
and in the past few years, that’s included
hiking, skydiving, Sea-Dooing, cycling, and
even visiting the American Ninja Warrior
training facility in Las Vegas a few times.”
Despite all the exercise, though, he says
he still hasn’t lost his belly on account of an-
other passion: food and food experiences.
Looking ahead, Coniglio plans to con-
tinue collaborating on unique technical
solutions by growing his relationships with
vendors and clients. “These strong relation-
ships typically also become friendships, and
I’m honoured that I have such a depth of
friendships in my life,” he says. “They’ve all
have had an impact on me in the almost
30 years I’ve been in the industry and I
hope that this continues to flourish in the
next 30 years.”
Andrew King is the Editor-in-Chief of Professional Sound.
PROFESSIONAL SOUND 21