I am the Director of Communications and Marketing at Menno Place, the largest single-location campus of care in British Columbia. I have been working in this position on the Executive Team for 1.5 years. I began at Menno Place as the director in a key marketing initiative for Primrose Gardens, 105 Independent Living Apartments which were leased up within 18 months of my arriving to join the team.

I enjoy the challenges and leadership that comes with seniors healthcare. The 700 residents who surround my life are steeped in life experience, wisdom and extraordinary experiences that are outside of my realm of imagination – such as being a teenager and seeking to serve in World War 2 or being a young girl who helped her father blast out hundreds of cedar stumps with dynamite sticks to clear the land for farming.

After working with many clients through Stir Communications Group, I was seeking an opportunity to invest all of my energies into one organization – to build from the ground up and to create an effective communication system that would impact lives in a significant and meaningful way. I found that challenge and opportunity at Menno Place.

Prior to coming to Menno Place, I was a partner in Stir Communications Group, an internet marketing and strategic consulting agency. My hands-on experience as a web-designer, site architect, e-zine editor and usability director laid the groundwork for my ability to synthesize complex situations, apply expertise and deliver defined pathways to successful internet presence.

What distinguishes me is my combination of online skills and my intuitive ability to connect with people.  As a speaker, I am known for my ability to engage with an audience while dispensing complex information with clarity.

For 15 years, I worked with a non-profit organization in many capacities. Initially, I was a mentor and leader managing a group of 60 women at the University of Manitoba. That role evolved into becoming an editor for a start-up online magazine. There, I taught myself how to write code and design websites. I was given the task of designing the interface for the flagship website of the organization. Working with a team of programmers, internet marketing experts and content developers, we created a cutting-edge interface that pushed every envelope at that time.

In 2003, I left my design job to start Stir Communications Group, Inc. Over the years, we have created many successful online communications tools for clients from a wide variety of industries and sizes. Our online solutions include: web design and usability; increasing traffic to a site; conversion optimization; data collection and lead generation; email marketing; paid advertising, and social media marketing.

I have enjoyed the opportunities to train teams in how to use online communication tools and grow an online marketing campaign. At one point, I managed a team of 17 summer interns (located in Los Angeles) for 8 weeks as we used the internet to seed information about a movie’s theatrical release. Every week, we connected online and tasks were assigned to each member of the team. It was a very successful method to disperse information widely and create a solid web of inbound links for the movie production company.

In other instances, I met with every department in an organization to discover how they can save time and staff resources by developing online communication tools, such as announcements, password protected information and email newsletters. I have created video training for the team so that they can re-visit the how-to’s which are easily forgotten if they aren’t using the online tools for periods at a time or they are seeing a turnover in their staff.

I have a close connection with women in the movie industry having been invited twice to speak to influential groups of movie directors. I spoke first to the Director’s Guild of America in their building on Sunset Boulevard. This led to another speaking engagement to the Alliance of Women Director’s. Both of these organizations represent tenacious and creative women who are working very hard to break through the male-dominated world of movie directing. It was my privilege to meet one-on-one with more than 40 members of these two groups to provide direction and consultation for building their personal online reputation as well as laying the foundation for marketing their movies.

I am available for confidential consultation, for team training and for executing your online marketing campaigns