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06/23/2016 12:00 PMPhil Gauvin is one the East Coast's most respected and sought after experts in his field. He was asked to review The Station nightclub fire in 2003, and he's been called in by local and state police, fire personnel, and even the FBI. He receives calls from rock and roll bands, filmmakers and TV shows, towns and cities, and even festivals and celebrations. They're all in search of his particular set of skills: Gauvin is a pyrotechnics expert.
"As an expert in his field, he's probably the most respected individual in the State of Connecticut, by local police, fire experts, state police, and the FBI" says Dave Sokoloff, a licensed pyrotechnics engineer who often works with Gauvin.
Gauvin got his start in New Haven county where he grew his former company, FX Pyrotechnics, into an industry powerhouse. In 2012, New Hampshire-based Atlas PyroVision Entertainment Group came knocking at Gauvin's North Branford workshop door. Gauvin now heads up area displays as General Manager, Southern New England Region, for Atlas. And while his professional career may have started in New Haven County it was family Fourth of July celebrations at their cottage on Lyme's Roger's Lake that sparked his passion.
"Every year, grandpa would come down from Canada with a trunk-load of fireworks. Back in the '60's, that was legal," says Gauvin, smiling. "It was like Christmas! Bottle rockets, firecrackers, Roman candles...I was always intrigued by them."
Gauvin took his interest quite a bit further than most boys.
"When I was about 10 or 12 years old, I'd ride my bike down to the local pharmacy – you'd be able to get chemicals over the counter – and I'd buy saltpeter and sulfur... stuff to make my own rockets! I remember the pharmacist telling me, 'Be careful, young man.'"
That bit of advice stuck with him. Gauvin's known for finding a safe way to produce impactful effects, and is also asked to review fireworks display parameters and protocols with law and public safety officers and officials.
"Everyone knows they can count on Phil for safety and knowledge of procedures," says Sokoloff. "He does demonstrations on what can go wrong and how to prevent it. A lot of other companies that come into the state to do shows are using Phil's advice and procedures."
Gauvin notes that the industry wasn't always so heavily regulated.
"Towns used to have big bonfires, and I would drag my dad to bonfires and fireworks shows," says Gauvin. "When I was 16 years old, I went to see the show at Lighthouse Point (New Haven) and got there early. I saw guys digging holes and putting pipes in the ground and asked them if they needed a hand. They said, 'Sure.' Back then, you could do that!"
"I was a student of fireworks," he says. "After I graduated high school, I spent the summer going to fireworks companies in Pennsylvania and met some of the old timers. I worked with the masters. They had a passion for it."
In Pennsylvania, Gauvin got into the good graces of Ralph and Anthony Semenza of Semenza Brothers Fireworks Co. For several years, he'd spend his weekends traveling to Pennsylvania to work alongside the Semenzas. From there, Gauvin went on to work with other companies, gathering experience and ideas that eventually blossomed into his own brand of spectacular shows. His first pyrotechnics company, Seawall Productions, got its start shortly after he and his wife married in 1976 and moved to their Morris Cove (East Haven) home.
"We'd throw parties and shoot fireworks off the seawall at our house," says Gauvin. "We started raising money by having dances with themes — Tacky Tie Night, Hawaiian night, Halloween. We'd raise $10,000 or $15,000 to blow on our party in the summer."
His reputation grew and led to the company's first official contract, lighting up First Night on the New Haven Green on New Year's Day in 1990.
"When I got involved with fireworks full time, people said, 'How are you going to make a business out of fireworks? It's only for the Fourth of July,'" says Gauvin.
While it's true that summers are a bit more hectic, Gauvin is busy year-round lighting up indoor concerts at Mohegan Sun and Foxwoods Casino or putting on creative controlled displays for private productions. In May, the Make a Wish Foundation contacted him for their annual gala at Mohegan Sun. Gauvin contrived an "exploding curtain" to reveal a four-foot, fire-lit cake; followed by confetti and streamers blasting into the air.
Gauvin's vision has helped him expand into commercial television and film. He's simulated blowing up a building (for Westfarms Mall) and blew up a food truck (in a controlled explosion at Stony Creek Quarry, Branford) for TV's Inside Edition. He's produced effects for rock shows – including touring with the Rolling Stones – and regularly creates displays for concerts at Mohegan Sun and Foxwoods Casino. Gauvin recently put on some dazzling pyrotechnics for Mohegan Sun's Toby Keith concerts; and he added plenty of flames for the venue's visit from heavy metal band Five Finger Death Punch.
But Gauvin's first love will always be fireworks. The industry's never-ending stream of changing effects, now largely packaged and shipped from China, somehow always seem to top the previous year's display. For Gauvin to create an average municipal fireworks display lasting just under 25 minutes takes months of planning, days of preparation, and hours of setting up mortars and computer-controlled launchers. Weather's always a factor; but adding a next-day rain date generally allows shows to go off as hoped.
Gauvin's designs were lit up Times Square on New Year's Eve to usher in 2010, 2011 and 2012. Shooting fountains of fireworks from the catwalk of a New York City skyscraper was a challenge Gauvin took on with characteristic vision. He had the pre-assembled effects set up in specialized boxes he designed to combat any weather that could arise on an icy winter's night.
"Other companies that had done Times Square on New Year's, half the display wouldn't go off because they'd get wet," says Gauvin. "The first time we did Times Square, we had 2,600 devices go off in 67 seconds — and only two didn't go off."
One of Gauvin's biggest displays will once again be at North Branford's Potato and Corn Festival (Aug. 5 to 7; fireworks scheduled for Aug. 6). That's because the venue, a former farm field, allows Atlas PyroVision to literally dig in and set up some of the largest mortars to be shot off in the state.
"We can blow off 10-inch shells because it's open space venue," says Gauvin.
Most shows make a splash with big blasts from six-inch shells, exploding into fields of light stretching over 150 feet wide.
Wherever the venue is, "...we try to make entertainment out of what we do," says Gauvin.
The big-time night sky fireworks effects have descriptive names — chrysanthemums, willows, brocades, stained glass, fountains, bees, serpentines. Some are designed to break in stages that set off a rainbow of colors; others explode into shapes such as hearts and smiley faces.
"You really have to enjoy it and you have to know your material and put it all together. You always want to have a good finale – a lot of noise, a lot of color; sight and sound," says Gauvin. "So it's being able to take the tools at your hand to accomplish that. It really is a passion. As a kid, I got yelled at for blowing stuff up. As an adult, I get paid for blowing stuff up. Who's better than me?"