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Bandit Lites 40 at 40: Peter Heffernan
President and Chief Operating Officer
Peter Heffernan was recently appointed president and chief operating officer of Bandit Lites. In his current position, Heffernan spends the majority of his time in business-related tasks such as taxes, insurance and overseeing all operations at Bandit Lites. Before taking on his new role, Heffernan was involved in everything from being a lighting technician to designing shows for Blackfoot and others. Here are a few questions we asked to get to know him a little better.
Q: How did you get involved in this industry? With Bandit?
A: I was on the concert committee at UT and had used Bandit several times. I did an Elvis Presley show, got a degree in communications and decided I wanted to go on the road for six months to see what it was like. I contacted Michael [Strickland].The first gig I did, I brought T-shirts to a Kenny Rogers concert. I ended up driving a truck for Kenny and the rest is history. I haven't gotten back to the broadcast business yet.
Q: Once you started with Bandit, how did you progress to where you are today?
A: I ended up being the lighting designer for the rock group, Blackfoot. We toured with all sorts of people, from Iron Maiden to Scorpions to AC/DC. From there I progressed to being a production manager for a band called Quiet Riot for about two-three years and then I came back to the office to start a sales initiative. Of course, from there, as Bandit grew, all sorts of things came up. As I tell everybody, you never know what you'll be doing at Bandit. I ended up getting into purchasing and from there came accounting and then operations, to a little bit of everything - which is what I do now.
Q: You've been with Bandit for 30 years now. Most people tend to change careers
several times in their lifetime, let alone stay with the same company. What about Bandit has kept you here all of these years?
A.:When I started at Bandit, the average person had two to three jobs in their lifetime. At this time, I think it's something like 14 or 15. One of the things that is very intriguing about getting people on board at Bandit is that they may not understand that it's not a job you have for a couple of years. We set it up so that it's a career path. The fact of the matter is, watching a company like Bandit and how it has grown and been successful and the fact that we bring people on and want them to have a family life and want them to succeed personally, is probably the main reason I've stayed with Bandit all this time.
3rd November 2008
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