OUR TEAM
OUR TEAM
ED ULIBARRI
Ed Ulibarri launched LVX Marketing with his partner, John Hernandez, covering California, Hawaii, Nevada, Utah, Arizona, and New Mexico. Ed started his sales career learning the retail piano business with Sherman Clay in 1980 where he became a Presidents Club member for three years. From there, Sequential Circuits hired him to be their west coast sales rep where he thrived in the burgeoning synthesizer market. In 1986 Ed became the District Sales Manager for Roland Corp. US for Northern California, Nevada and Utah, a successful career spanning over 26 years.
Ed has exceptional skills in building and maintaining dealer relationships, effective communication, and strategic thinking. Ed has a proven ability to analyze customer needs and provide innovative solutions for todays tough marketing challenges. He has launched creative retail promotional events to capture and access unique sales opportunities for his dealers.
Ed has been a professional musician for over 45 years as a keyboard player as well as an accomplished vocalist”he understands the musicians needs. He has written and recorded music with many successful artists including Mike Pinder from the Moody Blues, Ross Valory of Journey, Jon Anderson of Yes, and Eddie Money. His band, Alexis, signed by MCA records in 1977, toured with Foreigner and Styx.
LARRY GARCIA
Senior Commercial Account & Applications Manager
Southern California - Arizona
Larry grew up with a love for playing music as well as fascinated by movie sound effects and quickly realized music and sound was his calling. He studied film and television production at California State University Long Beach and played keyboards in local rock bands. Soon after college, Larry worked for Roland Corporation USA, a company on the “cutting edge” in development of analog & digital musical instruments as well as hard disk based multi-track digital recorders. While at Roland USA, Larry was involved in product demonstrations, conducting private studio demonstrations and composing and performing music for various trade shows in both the USA and abroad including Brazil, Canada, Mexico, England & Germany. Larry also performed and demonstrated Roland products at the “National Association of Music Merchants” (NAMM) in Anaheim California and the Frankfurt “Musikmesse” in Germany. Larry was also involved in product development as well as contributing factory sounds for many classic Roland synthesizers including the JD-800 & JV-1080. He was also a regular contributor to the Roland Sample Archives CD-ROM Libraries for the Roland S-770, 750 & SP-700 digital samplers.
After leaving Roland USA, Larry worked for Roland R&D Japan as an independent sound designer working on sample libraries and synth programming for Roland’s 700 series digital samplers. While working for Roland R&D, Larry had the opportunity to work closely on projects with Roland’s premier sound designer and Spectrasonics founder, Eric Persing.
As an independent sound designer Larry has contributed to both albums and feature film scores with artist and composers including Hans Zimmer (with lead sound designer Bob Daspit), John Lind, David Schwartz, Rene Moore and John Schreiner as well as produced and created numerous sample libraries for companies including Spectrasonics, Ilio and East/West Sounds Online.
As a song writer/composer, Larry has composed original music for albums, television and live theater. He also composes music for both corporate and instructional video productions. As a sound effects editor, Larry has worked in television, feature films and on animated feature movies.
Working with Calvary Chapel in Southern California, Larry is heavily involved in church related productions including composing music and sound effects for live theater and playing keyboards for Calvary Chaple’s worship band. He also is involved in organizing sound systems and backline for large music events including Calvary Chaple’s annual “Labour Of Love Music Fest”, held on the beach in Huntington Beach, California and features some of Christian music’s top artists.
SHAWN STEEN
Director of New Markets
A multi-instrumentalist, Shawn Steen created his own line of ergonomic electric guitars, worked for companies like Gibson Guitars and Haight Ashbury Music.
• Over 18 years of experience in Music Retail Industry.
• 6 years as a Product Specialist.
• Luthier and Guitar Designer
• Conceptualized and wrote an instructional guitar book
"The Alternative Guitar Handbook", that sold worldwide through Music Sales Publishing.
• Owned & operated The Jam Bothers Music from 2011-2019
• Created Steen Guitars in 2014
ALEX VARGO
Commercial Account Manager
Colorado - Wyoming
After Spending four years in the US Army, assigned to the 7th Special Forces group out of Fort Bragg, North Carolina, and being deployed on several REAL-WORLD Missions, and jumped out of 244 perfectly good military aircrafts, Alex spent the next ten years; developing his sales skills, selling electro-mechanical power systems to OEM's in the San Francisco-Bay area for a large power supply MFR. With sales exceeding more than $75M annually, Alex exceeded sales expectations by more than 700%, while continuing to drive innovation, value added services, and continuous communication with the client and the entire team.
Alex is a highly technical Business Development Manager with extensive experience selling technology in commercial construction. Developing critical relationships with Clients, Developers, Architects, Design Consultants, Technology Integration contractors and General contractors, Alex has a complete understanding of the Business Process and Project Delivery Method(s), and has had great success in the Denver market; Alex has delivered more than $100M in successful client projects across the front range since 2004, and is excited to continue developing our clients trust, and providing best in class products and services to the Rocky Mountain Region.
JOHN HERNANDEZ
john@lvxmarketing.com
John Hernandez has extensive retail, management, and wholesale experience.
1979-1981 - Management and top in sales for a multi-million dollar camera chain, Brooks Cameras.
1981-1988 - Management and top in sales at The Goodguys. General manager of a 7 million dollar a year location in Silicon Valley.
1988-1993 - General Manager for New World Music & Sound in San Diego. John took the store from strict pro-audio to full MI including procurement of Pearl, Fender, and Zildjian. He was also instrumental in sales and demonstrations of specialized electronic percussion for Drum Kat, Roland, and many more early cutting edge technologies.
1993-2012 - Roland District Sales Manager for portions of Northern California and Hawaii. Winner of numerous sales achievement awards. Setting up new markets, product training and most of all providing impeccable customer service. Mentored many businesses and achieved long lasting relationships with accounts.
In December of 2012 John Hernandez co-founded LVX Marketing along with long time business partner and friend Ed Ulibarri.
John attended the very first Electronic Music class at San Francisco State University in 1977. Since then has been one of the movers and shakers in the electronic percussion industry. John has been a professional drummer for over 40 years and conducted the Roland V-Drum clinics and workshops in Northern California and Hawaii. Prior to that John was doing clinics for Drum Kat in the late 80′s and early 90′s. John also attended recording engineering school in San Diego for 4 years in the late 80′s-early 90′s and is currently a producer, engineer, and mastering engineer. John also plays keyboards and is a master synth programer, plays guitar and bass. In the last few years, John has been consulting on many projects from House of Worship, Theater, Conference Rooms, and Home Theater design.
JOSEPH AHLMAN
Account Manager
New Mexico - Northern Texas - Utah
Joseph was born into California in the late 50‘s, grew-up during the tumult of the 60’s and the excess of the 70’s. In the 80‘s he started his first 8 track analog recording studio which grew into a 16 track, and graduated from college with a BFA in Film Production. When he went off to college he studied audio engineering under Jim Anglesey and worked at Suite Sound 24-track recording studio in Salt Lake City, UT. After graduating college he went to work for Disney/Touchstone in Burbank. In the 90’s he returned to running his recording studio in Utah and went digital, and worked 3 years in Pro Audio/MI retail on the side. he then worked as an independent audio sales rep for the next 16 years for premier MI, Pro Audio, and contracting lines. In 2010 he went to work for Musicians Friend as a customer service account manager. In 2011 he went to work for Performance Audio and ended up managing their first satellite store. “Things have now come full circle. I look forward to working with the LVX Marketing team serving the Rocky Mountain States.”
LESLIE BUTTS
Senior Accounts Manager MI Division
California - Arizona
Raised in Denton Texas…Moved to California 1980 to work with the Original Schecter Guitar Research. Moved on to Paiste Cymbals, HSS and then 15 years with Pearl Corporation. Been in the MI Business for over 39 years.
Still active playing drums in Los Angeles. Recently recorded album with Black Squirrel Band which was a great experience. Based in Woodland Hills with my wife of 35 years Mia.
Happy and excited to join the LVX Team!
RICH SCHARAGE
Director of Residential Sales
Rich began selling Audio in 1984 at a small shop called Stereo Scene on Steven Creek in San Jose. Moved over to The Good Guys where I was quickly promoted into a leadership position, became a store manager, and spent ten years running one of their most profitable stores.
I was recruited to Best Buy where I was Northern California’s Commercial Sales Account Manager as well as General Manager at the flagship store at Santana Row for many years.
I believe music is the universal language that brings people together, it’s how I met my multi talented wife.
One of my goals is to continue to build long term relationships with clients by understanding their true needs and achieving their full potential. (Some of my best friends were first customers, peers, and employees.)
TOM SIZE
Senior Audio Consultant
~ In Memorium ~
Tom Passed into the Light Oct 2016
JC FAXAS
Special Account Manager
~ In Memorium ~
JC Passed into the Light Oct Feb 2022