Back in ’99, I landed my first real job with the NC Department of Agriculture as a publication designer, fresh out of Campbell University with my graphic design degree. That’s where everything clicked for me. Their webmaster took me under his wing and showed me the ropes with HTML and CSS. I was hooked instantly – there was something about building things on the web that just made sense to me.
From there, I jumped to Clear Channel (you know them as iHeart Radio now). Beyond the radio stations, they owned tons of billboard properties, and I got to work on both graphic design and help build their internal company website. Every project just reinforced how much I loved this digital world we were all figuring out together.
The mid-2000s brought me to a Raleigh SEO shop that was doing cutting-edge work for PartyGaming over in the UK. Talk about learning from the best – getting paid to watch an SEO mastermind at work was like getting a master class for free. I started picking up side work too, coding websites for designers who didn’t want to mess with the technical stuff. (Fun fact: I still hand-code everything from scratch, including this website you’re looking at right now.)
That side hustle got so busy I went full-time with it. One of my best moves was contracting with Shoeboxed up in Durham back in 2009. The relationships I built there are still paying dividends today – that’s the power of treating people right and doing solid work.
I spent several years helping Security Self Storage completely transform their business online. We took them from zero to nine locations across the Triangle, with hundreds of 5-star reviews. Watching a traditional business embrace digital and absolutely crush it never gets old.
After that, I took a breather from running my own show and joined Northern AZ Wind & Sun (now NAZ Solar) to focus purely on marketing. Email campaigns, content strategy, Google Ads, Facebook Ads – I got to dive deep into the marketing side and help grow their solar business.
Then my wife and I decided to test everything I’d learned by starting our own e-commerce company. We hit over $1 million in sales in two years, mostly through Facebook and Instagram advertising. I learned the whole product game – finding manufacturers, bringing products to market, the works. We sold that business in 2022 for a nice profit.
I also launched Flagstaff Outdoor Co on the side, which was wild – I actually got products into Sportsman’s Warehouse and other retailers across the Southwest. Nothing beats the feeling of walking into a store and seeing something on the shelf that you created from scratch.
Most recently, I spent two years as a front-end developer with LaunchNotes, a SaaS company. Funny enough, their COO was an old colleague from my Shoeboxed days – small world, right?
Now here we are. After collecting all these different skills over the years – design, development, marketing, e-commerce, you name it – I realized I wanted to get back to what I love most: helping other businesses succeed online. That’s why I started Raven Media Co. There’s nothing quite like taking everything you’ve learned and using it to help someone else’s dream take off.
