A lot has happened in the thirty-five years since CTI was launched! Instead of giving you the history of AV or CTI – you can read that right here we thought we’d celebrate 35 Years of Success by looking at five of the most significant moments as CTI grew from a kitchen table in Saint Louis to a global AudioVisual integrator!

1) October 11th, 1988: Jane and Dennis Woodhouse launch Conference Technologies Inc. on their kitchen table in Saint Louis, MO. Today, CTI works globally, with 34 offices covering the US from Minnesota to Texas, New York to California, and projects completed in 25 countries!

2) 1997: Our CEO, John Laughlin, joins the company as an accountant and bookkeeper. Today, he’s our second longest-tenured employee after Ken Jaques, VP of Control Systems Programming, who joined the company as an Installation Technician in 1995.

John and Ken aren’t our only employees with over 20 years at the company. Cathy Kelly, our Chief Strategy Officer, joined CTI in 1998. Jill Reise, our Employee Experience Director, joined in 1999, and our Branch Operations Director, Barbie Zenner, joined in 2000. The trio has held many positions inside CTI, including receptionist, marketing, accounting, inside sales, branch coordinator, service coordinator, employee experience, and project manager!

3) 2001: CTI made its first acquisition, the Kansas City location of Visual Works, and a second office in Overland Park, Kansas. CTI also completed its first multi-million dollar project. The TyCom Network Management Center kept a crew from CTI deployed in Wall Township, NJ for months. No mean feat, given the company had 20 full-time employees!

4) 2011: Jane Woodhouse, the co-owner of CTI, retires. Mary and John Laughlin became complete owners; they’d purchased 49% of the company when Dennis Woodhouse retired in 2008. John was named CEO in 2009.

5) 2023: Conference Technologies rebrands as CTI. Still privately owned by Mary and John Laughlin, the company has over 750 employees, has completed more than 11,000 projects worldwide with the PSNI Global Alliance, supports more than 1,300 Client Service Contracts,  and completed 2100 projects and 1765 events in 2022 alone.

Our clients include two of the five largest companies in the Fortune 500, Citi Group, Coca-Cola, Centene, LinkedIn, Mars, Paypal, World Wide Technology, several major universities, MLB, NHL, MLS, and NFL teams, K-12 schools, Houses of Worship, small businesses, and much more.

We’re looking forward to another 35 Years of Success!