About Our Advertising Agency
Our team’s passion, drive, and experience helps our clients grow their businesses and propel them to success, with tailor-made, innovative marketing strategies and services that are second to none.
We select the most effective strategies from both digital and traditional media that to bring the highest return on investment for your business. Our beliefs form the foundation of our advertising agency.
We believe:
- that business can and should be used to make the world a better place
- in the “triple bottom line”: equal importance on people, profit, and the planet
- that our success will come as a natural result of helping our clients to be successful
- that for-profit businesses and non-profits can partner together to create positive change for our community . To that end, we often pair profits with non-profits for promotions and events that are mutually beneficial.
Gary Chatham – President
Gary has been on the cutting edge of the marketing and personal development fields for over 20 years. As a founding partner of a groundbreaking interactive marketing agency in San Diego in 1997, Gary built a reputation for providing his clients with cost-effective marketing strategies that produce undeniable results. Gary now helps entrepreneurs, and small to medium-sized businesses achieve the success they desire through a combination of business coaching and marketing services.
With a background and education in both Marketing (BS) and Psychology (MA in Counseling), Gary is an expert in knowing which strategies will attract and retain the best customers for his clients. By placing himself in the shoes of your customers, and by drawing on his knowledge base and years of experience, he effectively communicates your vision to your target market. Gary brings the vision, strategies, and passion that will mean results for you.
Beyond his passion for marketing, Gary loves playing in local bands, enhancing personal growth, and building community connections. He says, ”My greatest motivation and satisfaction come from seeing our clients’ businesses grow, while making a positive impact on the community.”
Michele Taylor – Creative Director
With over 11 years experience in web design and development, as well as print design, Michele is Chatham Marketing’s Creative Director. Michele’s interest in art started as a toddler when she fell in love with finger painting, and then progressed to making mud sculptures with her parents’ new cookware set. After taking a few graphic design classes in high school, her passion for design grew into college classes, and led to a career in graphic design. Over the years, Michele’s expert eye for visual appeal and her finely tuned technical skills have brought countless businesses’ web sites to the “next level.”
She’s a gifted designer who clearly knows how to showcase a business’s web content for maximum customer appeal. She is also adept at web programming. Her specialties include: Art Direction, Flash, Branding, CSS, Xhtml, and PHP integration.
Michele is always thinking of new ideas, enjoys a healthy lifestyle, and working out.
Kassy Killey – Vice President of Marketing Strategy and Social Media
For Kassy, the fact that marketing was her calling truly clicked for her when she was a student at Bradley University, where she graduated summa cum laude. After graduation, her drive and enthusiasm for all things marketing led her on an impressive career path.Over the past ten years of working for nonprofit, B2B and B2C companies, including industry giants such as Multi-Ad and Barnes and Noble, she’s developed a jack-of-all-trades skill set, ranging from PR, to advertising, to research.
Although Kassy has a broad spectrum of skills, her specific areas of expertise, however, include: strategic analysis, search engine marketing, online marketing, social media, event marketing, and email marketing. Basically: If there’s a message to get out to a customer base, she’s the one to do it!
Kassy has also been known to volunteer often, and she’s passionate about all things earth-friendly and holistic.
Stefanie Santos McLeese – Director of Public Relations
With nearly 15 years of experience developing and implementing strategic communications plans, Stefanie has a laser focus on supporting business objectives through smart, savvy public relations and communications. Her passion for impacting our clients’ businesses stems from her foundation in corporate communications roles with the National Office of Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD), Nissan North America and Encana Oil and Gas, USA. Her strategic public relations counsel, as well as speechwriting and assisting clients prepare for public appearances and media interviews, has provided tremendous value to C-suite executives.
Her strong corporate communications experience gives her tremendous insight and empathy for what her clients need, which drives her to deliver measureable results every time. In all of her corporate roles, Stefanie led the internal communications function, which included the development of strategic plans designed to strengthen the respective companies’ top PR asset: employees. Stefanie was also responsible for the detailed planning and execution of countless employee, community and media events.
Stefanie has held a variety of board positions for the Public Relations Society of America Dallas Chapter. She received a Bachelor of Science in communications from Tarleton State University in Stephenville, Texas.
Marcelo Isaak – Director of International Marketing
Marcelo heads our international marketing services, with extensive expertise in international business development, and marketing industrial products.
He has experience in assisting businesses expand into international markets in the Americas, Europe, Oceania, Asia and Africa, profitably growing businesses and manufacturers. His expertise includes establishing and developing business operations, selecting and working with representatives, licensees and acquisition of new business entities. He is fluent in English, Spanish and Portuguese, and has a degree in mechanical engineering from the Polytechnic Institute of NYU.
Marcelo lives with his wife here in the Peoria area.
John Farmer – Director of Videography
John is our animator and videographer, as well as being a designer, and teacher. He is a graduate of Bradley University’s Interactive Media program, with a concentration in Animation & VFX, and has been a creative visionary for over 20 years. It is his expertise that provides photo, video and motion graphics to our clients’ projects. He is also an adjunct faculty member for Bradley University, teaching animation and 3D modeling, and somehow manages to also do freelance work.
In addition, John is also a musician, having had a group in the Peoria area, with Lori, our Director of Photography.
Lori Koch – Director of Photography
A veteran of the stock photo industry, Lori has a penchant for photography, color and design. Having previously held managerial and leadership positions with Glow Images and Jupiter Images, and working with clients such as Scholastic Publishing, JEOPARDY!/Wheel of Fortune, Ogilvy & Mather, and Woman’s World Magazine, Lori has extensive experience in meeting the needs of clients for visual arts. She also has been in management with OfficeMax.
Together with John, our Director of Photography, Lori creates unique and effective visuals for our clients, and makes great music on the side.
Maegan Gilliland – Project Manager and Marketing Consultant
Mae is our Project Manager, as well as being a Marketing Consultant for our clients. It is her expert coordination that pulls together all our work for our clients. She holds Ph.D. in digital humanities, and possesses a unique skill set, which ranges from statistics and programming, to marketing, development, management, PR, composition, and technical writing. She has lived and worked internationally, and has a keen sense for effective communications among organizations, clients, and the public.
She has previously been employed as a freelance writer, university instructor, and educator at Lakeview Museum. Mae also is an artist, and is the co-owner of a custom jewelry and art store in Peoria.
