The Story Behind the Storyteller
Marketer. Strategist. Writer. Builder. Relentlessly curious human.
For more than 20 years, I've built a career around understanding people: What captures their attention, earns their trust, brings them together and makes a story stick. My path has moved through radio, marketing, brand strategy, advertising, experiential campaigns, community engagement, editorial writing and entrepreneurship. The titles and mediums have changed. The thread running through all of it hasn't:
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Curiosity about people, and a belief that the best work begins by understanding them.
Curiosity Came First
Long before I knew what marketing strategy was, I was curious about people.
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Why do we choose one thing over another?
Why does one story stay with us while another disappears? Why do some experiences make people feel like they belong?
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That curiosity followed me everywhere. Into broadcasting, marketing, writing, community events, brand campaigns, children's stories and eventually entrepreneurship. I am interested in more than simply getting someone's attention.
I want to understand what makes them care.
Learning to Tell Stories
Radio became my first creative laboratory.
For 17 years, I learned to understand an audience in real time: What makes people listen, laugh, trust, tune out or stay for the next sentence.
Behind the scenes my work extended far beyond the microphone. I wrote and produced advertising, developed integrated campaigns, worked with clients and sales teams, built promotions and live experiences, created digital content, formed community partnerships and helped brands find the right story for the right audience.
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Working across different formats taught me something I've carried into every role since: There is no such thing as "the audience." Different people care about different things. The message, voice, platform and experience have to begin with understanding who you're actually trying to reach.
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Know who you're talking to before deciding what you want to say.
What I Bring to the Table
Audience Instinct
20+ years of learning how different people think, listen, respond and connect.
Strategic Thinking
I like finding the why before jumping to the what. Then building the strategy around it.
Creative Range
Campaigns, copy, content, experiences, partnerships, brand stories and original creative worlds.
Follow-Through
I'm comfortable moving from the big idea into the details required to actually make it happen.
20+ years
Marketing, media
& storytelling
17 years
Broadcast & audience engagement
750+
Published articles
Founder
Pointed West
Building Things That Matter
The work I'm proudest of usually has something in common:
it creates a real connection.
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Sometimes that's a campaign that brings a community together.
Sometimes it's helping a business understand its audience differently.
Sometimes it's raising money for children and families.
Sometimes it's building an experience people remember years later.
And sometimes it's starting something entirely from scratch.
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Pointed West grew from that same instinct. What began with a children's story inspired by curiosity about the natural world has grown into a publishing and educational media company with original characters, story worlds and ideas designed to help children explore, learn and believe in themselves.
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I love building things.
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Brands. Campaigns. Experiences. Stories. Worlds...
Most of all, I love building things that mean something to the people they're created for.
Start with curiosity.
I ask questions before I prescribe solutions. Understanding the problem usually reveals the better idea.
Understand the audience.
Who are we talking to?
What matters to them?
What will make them care?
How I Work
Find the story.
Get down to the root, goal, bigger picture, relatability and expand the story from there. That's usually where I start.
Independent by nature. Collaborative by choice.
I can take a project from idea through execution independently, and I value collaboration when another perspective makes the work stronger.
Outside of Work
I'm happiest outside.
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Give me a paddleboard, a trail, a road trip, a camera, an unfamiliar town or somewhere I've never explored before and I'm probably in.
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I'm also a mom, an obsessive collector of story ideas, a reader, a nature lover and someone who will happily disappear down a research rabbit hole because one interesting question led to seventeen more.
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Back in the Pacific Northwest, mountains, forests, water and endless places to explore are doing absolutely nothing to cure that curiosity.
What I'm Building Next
Today, I'm bringing all of those experiences together.
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I'm drawn to work where strategy and creativity aren't treated as separate disciplines. Where understanding the audience matters, storytelling has a seat at the table and good ideas are expected to become real things.
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I'm especially interested in brands and organizations connected to the outdoors, travel, children and families, publishing, education, animals, home and lifestyle, community and other work that makes people's lives more interesting, useful or meaningful.
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I'm open to remote full-time and part-time roles, contract opportunities and freelance projects across brand marketing, creative strategy, storytelling, content, copywriting, experiential marketing, partnerships and community.
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If you're building something worth caring about, I'd love to hear about it.