Divorce kickstarted the next chapter. After having been home with my children for two years, I decided post-divorce to assist and teach Spanish part-time in the twins’ preschool classroom so I could continue to be with them. A few months later, I landed a full-time position at Island Montessori Elementary School. For supplemental income, I developed afterschool Spanish classes which quickly became overrun.
But, alas, a Spanish teacher’s salary, supplemental income or not, proved to be unsustainable for our four-person family. And, the demands of running my own landscape design firm while being the present parent I’d committed to being felt unworkable.
Always writing in my spare time, serendipitously the word got out to the right people at the right time, and after trying my hand at a screenplay, I was offered a position as copywriter and content director for a commercial and digital production company based in New York and Wilmington. I was in my element - writing, marketing, strategy, some selling, some editing, and later producing. This was where I belonged. I gained a wealth of knowledge and experience and found myself drawn to storytelling on screen. We worked with companies, agencies and nonprofits the likes of College Board, Edelman, Capstrat, Medthink, The Arthritis Foundation, Energizer, Duke Energy, and UNC Healthcare.
As the company expanded, so did our territory and extensive travel became an ever-present component of my career. After four years, I eased my way out of my full-time position in order to limit travel and continued freelancing with Public Address and their offshoot startup, Off Route. Inspired by PAS’s prosocial advertising platform, I founded a Wilmington-based marketing firm with a corporate/nonprofit partnership twist so that I could stay closer to home. I was the owner, creative director, and team leader of Penn+ Creative for four years and worked with local businesses to funnel their marketing efforts through community partnerships. We had the privilege of working with Audi Cape Fear, who within two years managed to double sales revenue; we helped launch a new space and spark the expansion of a boutique real estate firm, Coastal Select Properties, which grew from three realtors to eight in less than a year; we developed blogs, built websites, created and distributed digital ad campaigns, and managed content and social platforms for national and local magazines as well as numerous restaurants, housing developments, and small mom and pop businesses here in Wilmington, NC.
Covid cleared the path for my next venture. In the uncertain climate that was 2020, it appeared as though everyone was poised to drop their marketing person. Fortuitously, the stars aligned once again when one of my clients, AJ Aliah of Cape Fear Imports, and at that stage, good friend, asked me to join the management team at Audi Cape Fear. I welcomed the opportunity and assumed the title of Business Development and Marketing Manager. Given the momentum Penn+ had helped to create, event marketing, advertising and community partnerships were added to typical BDC lead management, campaign development, and inbound and outbound sales duties. With a desire to amend and fortify the sales process, the owner and management team promoted me to Finance and Business Development manager. Two years later, I was moved into the position of Sales & Business Development Manager.
With a three-year plan to get back to the work I loved, in January of 2023 I turned in my three months notice in order to give the ACF team ample time to find a new leader. And, by late April of 2023, I signed on as interim Communications Director for a startup nonprofit, Northside Oasis of Wilmington (NOW). I was charged with facilitating and managing municipal, county, nonprofit, and third-party partnerships in order to secure the land & resources needed to launch NOW's Optimism Oasis capital campaign. The experience was inspiring and ignited the spark needed to dive back into the corporate-nonprofit partnership work I was meant to do. I now work with business and nonprofits across eastern NC and SC to create and develop valuable and long-lasting partnerships that inspire loyalty and create awareness.
At the end of the day, aside from titles - writer, strategist, producer, manager - at the heart of my work life, I’m a fixer. And collaboration is my primary tool. I excel at being flexible, pivoting, and with creativity, passion, and good management skills, fixing what’s broken by creating new processes and collaborative efforts designed to grow a team, project, or entity beyond what was once deemed its capacity. A better overview of my skill set can be seen in my resume. But, this is the essence of me at work, and why I work so well.