Really… Why Me?

I have the unique mix of skills, experience and capacity to help your business on a part-time basis, working remotely from both Canada and Mexico. I’ve proven it for two decades, doing the job the right way, and meeting whatever deadlines all kinds of businesses and clients have thrown at me, as if I was in the office next door.

In Business…

• I have figured out how to run a million dollar business, without having a degree in business.
• I have learned how to manage clients, employees, partnerships, and even the books.
• I respect and value people the most… all of them.
• I understand that minimizing churn is far more important than maximizing sales.
• I have learned to take nothing for granted, that you will face things you’ve never thought of, and to embrace failure.

In Design…

• I am not afraid of taking on big ideas like names and brands, I’ve done many.
• I take pride in being trusted to finish the job properly, even if it’s a print run of a million units that’s manufactured in China, has 15 spot colors, holographic effects and complex die cuts.
• I like the design work that others find boring, because 90% of design work is not front page or flashy, but 100% of it plays an important role.
• I have proven that working remotely is blessing, not a barrier for the clients I’ve collaborated with over the last two decades.
• In a rapidly evolving AI world, whatever I don’t know now, I’ll take the time to learn.

In Life…

• I’m approaching 50, been married 20+ years to my wonderful wife Sarah, have no kids and two cats
• I bounce back and forth between two condos in both Cochrane, Canada and Playa del Carmen, Mexico
• I cycle, paddle-board, run, play ultimate frisbee, ball hockey and beach volleyball, and will do pretty much anything that gets my heart rate up.
• I have DJ’d and produced music for as a hobby for almost 22 years, which is how I connected with many of the people who are still in my life today.
• I grew up in a small town of 800 people, played hockey for 34 years as well as almost every other sport I could.
• I was great at physics and math in high school, but ended up with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in college.

Unique Moments & Projects

ROADPROOF: From First to Market to Industry Leader

Together with my two US-based partners, designed, branded and built RoadProof… a profitable 7-figure software as a service platform from scratch, 100% bootstrapped, in less than two years. Now four years running, we’ve successfully navigated many first-to-market challenges, have thousands of users from multiple industries, and are known nationwide in the US as the #1 platform for recorded traffic video.

EMERLIN: A Naming & Branding Initiative To Be Proud Of

While full-time with KristiJane, I led a successful 3 day renaming & rebranding workshop in Chesapeake, Virginia for a local shed building company, who at the time was “Colonial Barns”. In that three day span, we took the company’s ownership from a hard no to any type of change to 100% buy-in, which resulted in what they now call “the absolute perfect name and brand that not only pays tribute to their past – tipping the cap to the company’s founder, Merlin – but is also opening doors into the future”, with the name “Emerlin”.

ADMAGIC / BREAKING GAMES: Big Responsibilities for Even Bigger Names

While working as Art Director for AdMagic / Breaking Games for 8 years, not only did I help build Breaking Games from a company of six to 55 people, I was continually trusted with all final art production for various tabletop game products, where the print run was a minimum of 100,000 units. This included products for Cards Against Humanity, Exploding Kittens, Joking Hazard and more.

Of particular importance, I was trusted to handle all art and print production for The $100,000 Puzzle by David Dobrik, which a single puzzle was printed with the winning $100,000 QR code, meaning a lot security measures had to be taken to ensure the QR code didn’t fall into the wrong hands.

INSPIRE STUDIOS: The Little Creative Agency That Could

Founded in 2005, together with a couple of partners along the way, Inspire Studios flourished as a creative agency that continually punched above its weight class. We were bold, fearless and not afraid to jump headfirst into projects and opportunities. We had some big successes, and some big failures along the way, but I wouldn’t trade any of it for something else.

Along the way, we earned a share in the Wirikuta, a cultural night show in Cabo San Lucas. We published “The Web Un-Tangled” book with 13 other authors. We renamed and rebranded mid to large size industrial companies including Brahma Compression, Solex Thermal Science and EMIT Technologies… with astonishing success (Brahma grew so fast in the following five years that they were acquired by industry giant, Foremost Industries).

We also got into developing SAAS Software for investments, real estate and human resources, with varying amounts of success and failure. We had to try.

GETTING FIRED: The Spark for A New Direction

After cutting my teeth for five years, starting from the ground up at my first agency job in Calgary, Canada, at Mosaic Communications, I eventually moved to a small start-up software company. During that time, I was picking up a lot of freelance work on the side.

Ironically, a billboard for one of my side clients ended up right on top of the software company’s office, who at the time, needed to cut costs and trim staff.

And just like that, I was fired.

It was the best and scariest day of my life, and in that moment started me down the path of never working for someone else as an employee again.