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John Lyons and his wife Jessica are the Founding Partners of the Newport Concours d’Elegance that started back in 2006. Today John and Jessica are the Founders and John is the Chairman of the New England Concours d’Elegance, now in its second year taking place Sunday, June 24 at Mitchell College in New London, Connecticut. John brings over 20 years of senior leadership experience in the wireless industry and has a life-long passion for cars and the collector car hobby. He has served on the advisor board of LeMay, America’s Car Museum and contributed to other significant museums in the country. He has consulted in the antique car auction industry for years and is a past contributor to Sports Car Market, Car Collector, and Old Cars Weekly magazines.
SHOW SPONSORS
Covercraft • MetronGarage • Christopher Kimball Financial Services
INSPIRATIONAL QUOTE
If you know yourself, you will succeed in life. You need to understand your strengths and weaknesses. If you’re able to accept them, embrace them, and improve on them, you’ll have a successful life.
CAREER & LIFE CHALLENGES
Fresh into corporate America, and I was feeling on top of the world. August 10, 2004 was the best day of my life because it was the day I lost my job at Nextel. Nextel was merging, and some of the senior management was let go, including me. I decided to move to West Hartford, Ct. from Wilton. I made the decision to do a major concours in Hartford. I spent a lot of money there, in fact, I spent more there than I do at events I do now. We brought in 30 billion dollars of wealth to Hartford for a 2 day event, and couldn’t get any of the city’s leadership to attend. I lost $150,000.00 of my money at that event. We only had 20 paid attendees at the show. We had 120 cars, including all the heavy hitters. But, I really didn’t know what I was doing at that time. However, I re-engineered the show, and knocked it out of the park. People from that show still show cars at my shows today.
FIRST SPECIAL VEHICLE
1960 Buick LeSabre and a 1966 Dodge Dart that I bought in 1982. The Dart was my daily driver, and I kept it longer than I have kept any other car.
BEST AUTOMOTIVE ADVICE
Cars are the stars. –John Crews
RECOMMENDED RESOURCE
Auto auction databases
RECOMMENDED BOOK
WHERE TO FIND JOHN
New England Concours on Facebook
PARTING WORDS OF ADVICE
Be honest with yourself and others. If there is a problem, resolve it, don’t hide behind it. If you make a mistake, admit it. Life is easy when you do that.
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