Dana Esposito
Vice President
Elevation Exhibits and Events
Creative Director
Eighteen Years in Industry
What drove you to be involved with the EDPA Northeast chapter?
When I was younger, I was fortunate to have someone take me under their wing and mentor me. Not because they had to, but simply to share their knowledge with another like-minded person. I saw a similar current of that same selflessness within EDPA - Sharing your knowledge to support the future of our industry. It drew me in like a magnet.
If you were not in the exhibit industry, what would you most likely be doing?
I would likely be a biologist because it was a subject that always interested me all through school. Or a dermatologist, because I can completely imagine myself helping people with the serious care of their skin. I am one of those people who thinks they can remove a splinter from anyone. I will try it on a perfect stranger if they let me…crazy designers and their x-acto knives…
Who is someone you admire and why?
Thomas Jefferson. I have an abnormal fascination with “TJ,” as I call him. He was involved with some many things at a time in history when information was not readily available on the internet or TV. Even books were not easily accessible. But TJ had a mind that was unquenchable for information and discovery. From architecture, to politics, to invention and gardening…his passion for knowledge was so deep and genuine. I constantly wonder, what a human with that type of drive for knowledge would be able to create and give to the world if born now? I also have been told, one of the reasons he was not fond of public speaking, was because he had a mild lisp that made him self-conscious. I am not sure if that is true, but he was certainly not as boisterous and outspoken as others at his time. That adds to the character of this person, who had grand ideas and great inventions, but who seems milder, softer, like his ego was not obnoxious. Which to me, makes the contributions even more elegant and humble.
