01
MAKE IT.
Designer
Branding, illustration, print, packaging, motion, video, audio and hands-on production. Learning how ideas survive contact with reality.
Designer → Creative Director → Marketing Director
I NEVER
STOPPED
MAKING.
Leadership gave me more context for the work. It never pulled me away from making it.
I started by learning how to make the work. Then I learned how to lead it. Eventually I took responsibility for the strategy, media, measurement and business decisions around it too.
Wichita, KansasThe through line
My career expanded.
It didn't replace itself.
The old version of this page described me as a digital designer and motion graphics enthusiast. That was true—but incomplete. I still care deeply about the craft of making things, from graphic design and motion to video, audio and code. What changed is the amount of context I gained around the work.
Over time, design became creative direction. Creative direction became leadership. Leadership expanded into marketing strategy, paid media, CRM, analytics, web, conversion tracking and the operational realities that determine whether a good idea actually performs.
I still make the work because knowing how things are built makes me better at deciding what should be built in the first place.
The progression
Three roles.
One continuous skill set.
02
LEAD IT.
Creative Director
Building systems, shaping campaigns, leading creative, expanding agency capability and connecting individual deliverables to a larger brand direction.
03
MARKET IT.
Marketing Director
Owning strategy, media, CRM, websites, analytics, attribution, performance and the business decisions surrounding the creative.
A few things worth knowing
Serious about
the work.
Not myself.
I like starting with nothing and bringing all the pieces together. I also like fixing things that are broken—which is convenient, because creative and marketing work provide a nearly endless supply of things to troubleshoot.
I keep my cool.
Tight deadlines don't bother me. When something goes sideways, I start from the top, figure out what's actually broken and work the problem.
I still make things.
Motion design in particular. Becoming a director never made me want to stop getting my hands dirty.
I notice the alignment.
Yes, that copy is off. Yes, I saw it. Yes, I'm going to fix it.
I will make a dad joke.
Probably while fixing the aforementioned alignment. Quirky is part of the package.
One professional hill I will die on:
Yes. I know.
Yes. I know.Before the director titles
I learned to lead
somewhere else.
Years in food service, eventually working my way into management, taught me how to work with people long before I was leading creative teams.
Customers. Employees. Pressure. Personalities. Mistakes. Problems that need an answer right now. Different industry, surprisingly transferable education.
It is probably part of why I work well under pressure now: take a breath, start from the top, and solve the thing in front of you.
Proof, not biography
The work tells
the story better.
How I work
THINK IT.
MAKE IT.
MARKET IT.
I don't see strategy, creative and marketing as separate departments handing work to one another. They are parts of the same problem.
The strongest work usually happens when the person shaping the idea understands how it will be produced, where it will run, how a customer will encounter it, how it will be measured and what the business actually needs from it.
That is the advantage of having spent my career on both sides of the handoff.
See how I market it →Off the clock
Apparently I don't
stop making then, either.
When I'm not making campaigns, I'm usually still making something. There's a very good chance it's edible. I'm an enthusiastic cook, I love to bake, and yes—there will probably still be a dad joke involved.
Still creating.