My name is Joe.

 

One time, I grew up.

I grew up in north-central Connecticut, in the same working-class small town where my parents were born and raised. Between the Cub Scouts and little league, I was your average small-town kid. I got my first job at the age of 13 doing some part-time landscaping, and at the age of 14, I joined my town’s volunteer fire department, following in the footsteps of my grandfather, father, and uncle. This was a great way for me to help out my community and have fun while doing it. Around the same time, I also became (somewhat) handy with a wrench, so I became a crew member for a race team that competed on the NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour. Our racing series would compete about 15 times a season from April to October, at tracks from Loudon, NH to Martinsville, VA. These two activities taught me the value of teamwork, responsibility, and accountability at a young age.

During my senior year of high school, I was selected to be a student representative on my town’s Board of Education while also participating as a member of the National Honors Society (yeah, I was kind of a nerd).

They let me into college.

One night during my senior year of high school, it dawned on me that I needed a change from the small-town life. I applied to a few schools and ended up moving to Boston to attend Northeastern University in 1999. I graduated in May of 2004 with a BS in Business Administration; Concentration in Marketing, a Minor in Visual Arts, and nearly three years of real-world work experience through Northeastern’s Cooperative Education (Co-op) program. Looking back, the co-op program was vital to gaining an advantage on other job candidates when I would later enter the workforce.

Attending Northeastern during that time was a great time to be there, as the university had just entered into the Top-100 Tier-1 colleges in the United States (as published in Business Week). The university expansion was in full swing, and Northeastern’s reputation was moving away from being a “commuter school” and toward being an internationally-recognized institution.

Right after graduation, I went into business for myself while I looked for a “regular” full-time job. Offering services in freelance design and marketing consulting, I grew my client base to include a variety of small and medium businesses, both local and national. Design was always something that I was good at, so by starting my own company I really got to enjoy what I was doing, while practicing the marketing, entrepreneurship, and design concepts I learned in college.

I got sick of the snow (offered a great job).

In early 2005, one of my clients in Ft. Lauderdale started flying me down to their offices to work on-site. I spent some time creating a web presence for them, and after about six months, one of the owners of the company created a full-time position for me. I said “goodbye” to Boston and moved down to South Florida; my tenure as Marketing Director with that company lasted for over four years, and I couldn’t have asked for a better opportunity as a 23-year-old.

Since my position was newly-created, I was tasked with building a marketing and design department from scratch, and in doing so, cut outsourcing costs by over 75%. I ended up with a very rewarding job covering every aspect of design and marketing, and lent my expertise and services to over 20 internal stakeholders across 19 Eastern U.S. cities and five brands. During my time with this company, my marketing efforts contributed to the company adding on 7 locations across 3 states, nearly tripling the annual revenue to approximately $180 million.

Unfortunately, the recession descended upon the private aviation industry (and my company, in turn) started to feel its effects toward Q4 2007. After more rounds of layoffs than I care to remember, I left the company in September of 2009. I had a very successful experience with this company; I had helped it double in size since my hiring and it made me realize that I had made the right choice by pursuing a career in marketing.

I missed the snow (and family).

Since I’ve been back in New England, I’ve been working for a nationally-recognized construction management firm performing various marketing, communications, and design duties. Experts in several functional areas, this employee-owned, $650 million company is quickly winning jobs across the country as the economy rebounds. In order to further my life and career, I am currently attending Suffolk University’s Sawyer Business school to earn my MBA in Marketing.

Et cetera

Life’s been interesting, so far. I’ve fought fires (both literal and figurative), I’ve held the Stanley Cup, I’ve built race cars, I’ve been in a band, I’ve piloted an airplane, I’ve sat on the edge of the Grand Canyon, I’ve built brands, and I once brewed a bock beer so tasty I named it “Rock Your Socks Bock”.

These days I enjoy following the Bruins, Red Sox, and Patriots; though they’ll never be able to hear me, I sometimes find myself yelling at them through the television. I also enjoy spending time with family and friends, cooking, learning about new technologies, being a beer snob, designing for the web, and watching movies (I have a penchant for useless pop-culture knowledge).