Past

I started this blog with the idea that it would be the base for my new business venture. I wanted to use it as a platform where I could share and save all of the really great articles and helpful nuggets I have come across in my marketing career. I will still definitely do that, but I also thought it would be nice to share a little about myself and this journey I am embarking on. I am sure I will encounter a lot of things in this process that being candid and honest about may possibly help clients in the future getting their own businesses started. So, here we go.

My past- I was born in a little suburb of Peoria, Illinois and lived there until I was just about 4 years old. My Mom bought a real estate appraisal business in San Diego, California and packed up the family to head west. Growing up in San Diego, for a lack of better words, was awesome. I always tell people there are two things in this life I will always be...a Daddy's girl and a beach girl.

I suppose my career in marketing started when I was in grade school. We got our first computer at home when I was about 10; an Apple 2GS. A neighbor friend and myself for about two years used it to put together and print a neighborhood newsletter that we would deliver to each of the 18 houses on our street monthly. We would report on changes people were making to their houses, special things their kids were doing in school and even put together contests for people to win, like who could decorate their house the best for the holidays. She would take the great pictures that we would include; which is now ironic that she is a professional photographer. My earliest form of journalism and promotions.

In Jr. High and high school I work for my Mom. My job was filing (super boring) and then delivering and picking up her 35mm film of the houses she was appraising at the 24 hour film store next to her office. Then I would organize the photos and glue them to the reports. Yes, glue pictures to professional reports! Digital cameras did not exist yet. In high school, I decided I wanted to participate in the school yearbook. Only problem was, you had to be a junior or senior to be on the staff. I decided that would just not do and wrote a letter to the Principle that there was no reason a younger student should not be allowed on the staff and that all grade levels should be represented. I was the first sophomore to ever be admitted to Valhalla High Schools yearbook staff. It was kind of like a sorority, they sent you a typed letter to your 3rd period class letting you know whether you got in or not. I remember thinking it was cool, because they printed it on the paper that looked like crumpled paper, but wasn't. Fancy! I still have it in a scrapbook. Of course I do! Three years on the staff and Senior year as Editor in Chief and I was hooked!

I went to college at the University of Oregon to study journalism. I did my research and found out it was the best journalism school on the west coast. So, I could "go away" to school, but not that far away. I originally wanted to do layouts for magazines or newspapers, but after I took a public relations course my sophomore year I realized that I loved the whole process of reaching people and educating them or even better, getting them to do something I wanted, like buy my products. I studied everything that went in to that, writing, design, event production and more. I graduated in four years, and my parents were thankful for that paying out of state tuition. Now, to find a job!

-Kristen