It was a long and tough road to get through 2018! The Weisfeld Family was blessed with our first born daughter Shyla who started the year off in the right direction. She came into the world in February and immediately reminded all of us what really matters in life (besides the music). Unfortunately, we also faced struggles with our oldest VPI family member, Shirley Greene, who ran into unexpected health problems that took her out of the office, but we hope only temporary.
The VPI family also saw new changes as new staff members joined the team, existing members expanded upon their existing roles, and others came to the end of their journey. With the expertise of Electronics Engineer Mike Bettinger and Operations Manager Rich Walker, we were able to bring Harry Weisfeld's original Direct Drive Turntable back to life in a more efficient and improved design. Marc Boyle, our Office Manager, continues to train and grow the VPI customer service staff to help continue to provide communication and easy access to a VPI staff and knowledge.
Our White Label Department as also continued and grown as we refine existing partnership with Shinola, Mark Levinson, Master & Dynamic, and continue to expand (another brand to be publicly named in the near future). One of the key components that helps add to the success of our White Label Department is being able to add our VPI DNA to other brands while each product has their own independent identity. More so, we are excited that should any of these brands choose to continue to have turntable products in their line or not, all tables produced from our White Label Department will always be able to be serviced like every other VPI product.
Together we forged a new path to pave the way for a longer fruitful future. The first being the direction of our 40th Anniversary experience. We realized that after 40 years of being in business, just making a product and slapping a "special edition" label on there doesn't seem like enough. We are plan to have a year long celebration that will continue for all of 2019!
To end the year on the right foot, we finished constructing our new VPI showroom/listening house! We will be releasing a 2019 schedule for when the public will be able to demo all sorts of products, meet manufacturers, and experience events like they never have before! In addition to listening, our goal is to additionally provide educational seminars at the listening house about proper turntable techniques, best practices for your system, maintaining/cleaning your records, and more!
With each learning experience from 2018 it only focused us as a team and family to make us stronger! Here's to a happy and healthy New Year!