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In 1983, Bill Steeves left the moving company industry as a salesman to venture into something he saw had major potential: trade-show displays.
"I knew I could sell this kind of stuff," he said from the Bridgeport showroom and office of Corporate Display Specialties Inc.(CDS) "Companies like to look good. Our job is to give them an image.
Steeves set off with a designer to form the company and started producing large-scale displays to be used by companies at trade shows.
He landed two major clients, and his business began to grow.
But it was his wife, whom he had met in 1986, who helped him grow the business substantially, he said.
"Everybody wanted to talk to her," he said.
Connie DeRosa, originally from New York City, moved to Long Island at the age of 19 with her husband, a New York City police officer. By the time DeRosa met Steeves while he was in Long Island setting up a trade show, she was used to doing the single mother hustle. She was widowed in 1976 after her husband was shot in the line of duty, and was working in customer service for a bank.
Chamber circuit
She brought that hustle to his business by working the Connecticut chamber of commerce circuit.
"I would...