More New Staff Members
Gragg Advertising is full of new staff members and we’d like to welcome them to our team here on 4th Street. Read more about our fabulous new staff -
Erik Pearson
Marketing Coordinator
Please welcome Erik Pearson to the Gragg team! Erik will be joining Gragg as a Marketing Coordinator, putting his past experience as a newscast director at News-Press 3 Now to work. Although Erik dreamed of being a superhero when he was young, preferably Wolverine, he decided to attend the University of Central Missouri instead and study Speech Communication. He is a member of a few collegiate honor societies, and won speech and leadership awards at UCM.
When Erik is enjoying some free time, you may find him in watching movies, playing guitar or spending time with friends and family, and if he had it his way, he would do this all from the Windy City. While all of these activities are great, his real dream is to play in an awesome tribute band, probably Queen or Dire Straits. Erik loves Mexican food, can’t eat gluten and can’t look up (or can he?).
Dominic Salvo
Marketing Coordinator
When posed with the challenge to offer a biography to his co-workers of Gragg, Dominic Salvo took the challenge head-on. Although the long list of loves and hates was shaved down to this, feel free to ask him for the complete list.
Before joining the Gragg team, Dominic worked as a Project Manager for an industrial engineering firm in South Kansas City. He had experience in advertising at a firm in Illinois and decided to venture from engineering back into the ad world.
Dominic loves football, the band on the Mizzou field and wishes that he could have graced the fields of the NFL himself. He loves all things Chicago sports—Cubs not the Sox. Grilling out is a favorite pastime, but he hates doing the dishes afterwards. He misses the sixth grade, thinks Tupac Shakur is still alive and is a firm believer that one day he will win the lottery. Although the list continues, here is just a preview of things you may expect when talking to Dominic.
Katie Long
Marketing Coordinator
Katie Long graduated from Missouri State University in December 2009 with a degree in Marketing with an emphasis in Sales. After graduation she took a job with Sherwin-Williams as a Management Trainee and relocated to Rogers, AR. She is so glad to be back in KC!
Katie was born and raised in Lee’s Summit, MO, so she is a diehard Royals, Chiefs and MU fan, but the Steelers and Cubs are also her teams. She likes to hang out with friends and family, travel, read, shop, run, play sports and scrapbook. Katie loves Mexican food, BBQ, ice cream and really anything salty or sweet. She has such an addiction she swears she will probably die with salt in one hand and something sugary in the other. Katie loves her cat, Reggie; she’s slightly obsessed with him and will gladly show you pictures of his cuteness (he has no tail so you know he’s adorable!)
The place Katie is most likely to be found if the weather is nice is OUTSIDE! Laying out at a lake or pool, or playing games and walking her boyfriend’s dog at the park are Katie’s preference. The Peanut is Katie’s main hang out to drink and watch games, so if you are in Lee’s Summit stop by!
Adam Fisk
Interactive Analyst
Adam Fisk is the newest member to the PPL department. After a 12 year stint in Chicago where he attended Loyola University (home of the 1963 National Champs!), worked at OMD, Razorfish and Starcom in media buying and planning, Adam returned to his hometown of Kansas City. At his past jobs Adam worked on accounts like LEGO, Polaroid, DeVry CPL, Dell and Hotels.com.in the PPL department, you may also find him cheering on the Royals or Cubs, or maybe attempting to play the drums even though he claims to be a little out of practice. He is leaving the rock star jobs to the Pixies and Rolling Stones, which are his favorite bands.
Adam loves the essentials in his life: sports, concerts, happy hours, eating, cooking and sleeping. Soon he hopes to add a dog to the mix. Next time you’re in the PPL department, stop by and talk to the newest member!
Mike Tipton
Sales Account Executive
Welcome Mike Tipton to the Gragg Staff. After slinging squares in phone books for two years at Yellowbook, he decided to come join our team. Before entering the ad world, Mike was a boxer in Peru where he was fighting his way out of the ghetto and back into the states to save his daughter from his evil nemesis.
Mike wears many hats—in addition to his advertising world jobs, boxing jobs he also sings, dances and writes songs for his band Molly Picture Club. He encourages everyone to “like” them on Facebook and come to a show. Mike is the proud father of two left handed geniuses, Jasper and Olivia.
If he is not working, singing, dancing, boxing or hanging out with his kids, Mike may be at his Grandpa’s farm in Lawson, dive bars because the jukeboxes are usually better or the studio playing music until all hours.
Ray Ruppert
Art Director
*Please note, Ray wrote his own bio. We love it so we thought it’d be best not to edit it.
My youth was spent mostly in Paw Paw, Illinois, a small town West of Chicago and East of oblivion. It’s during this time that I learned to use jumper cables and that you’re either a Cubs fan or a Sox fan, but not both.
I drew a pirate featured in an art school ad and mailed it in. A school recruiter somehow found where Paw Paw was and stopped by to convince me to attend his school. I was climbing our cherry tree at the time and talked to him from the top branch. Being ten years old I was forced to wait until I could legally sign student loan documents to join the school.
After graduating High School I matriculated at Aurora College (on you Spartans). I decided not to go to art school after noticing that sign painting was the only viable job for an artist in my county. It’s during my time in Aurora, Illinois, that I learned where to find the frog illustration on Old Style beer cans and that rear-wheel drive American cars suck in snow.
Two years of pushing cars out of snowbanks at Aurora College made me yearn to follow my dream of commercial art. I visited a local ad agency to learn how the business worked when I realized all I knew about advertising was from the TV show “Bewitched”.
Soon after my research, I moved to Denver and enrolled at the Colorado Institute of Art (the less nefarious CIA). It’s during this time I began to wear corduroy shorts with sweaters and learned how to pronounce Poudres. To put myself through school, I had jobs shelving books at the public library and building architectural models.
Work took me to Kansas City where I toiled as a graphic designer, art director, and merchandising display designer. I’ve worked for Hattaway Design, Fleischman-Hillard, Sandy, Inc. and Garmin International. I’ve freelanced for Hallmark, Swicegood and several other places I’m trying to forget. It’s during this time that I learned the difference between sauces and rubs, and that Paseo doesn’t rhyme with rodeo.
I can’t wait to see what I learn next.
Ella Brunworth
Marketing Coordinator
Ella Brunworth joins operations as the new marketing coordinator. Some may remember Ella from the summer internship she had with Gragg this past summer. After seeing this position’s availability, she jumped on the opportunity to get back into the Gragg world. Ella graduated from Park University in Human Resources and Business Administration.
Anything related to baking, cooking or food is a passion of Ella’s. She tries to eat somewhere new each week to try new foods and cuisines and soaks up the Cooking Channel and Food Network to further her addiction. Ella loves to share good wine with good friends, cook and have people over for dinner, sing when she thinks no one can hear, write, paint, dream about traveling the world, read, camp (in a tent—anything else doesn’t count) and spend time with family and friends.
Ella loves to venture out anywhere with her friends, take in the outdoors if the weather is nice or whip up some new concoction in the kitchen.
