I've been making ads since I was 5, drawing them with magic marker and putting them up for the other kids to see. My brother helped by acting as an account person and asking if the logos could be bigger.
My second job ever was designing. Much better than my first job detasseling corn. And even though design work gets you very little free corn, I knew it was what I wanted to do. I enrolled at Texas State University where our professors alternately yelled at and praised me until I became super powered designing machine.
After graduation, I began my career at a small fast-paced agency in Dallas named Firehouse. I was thrown right in the furnace, working on clients like Nokia, CompUSA and Blockbuster.
I moved on to Calise and Sedei mastering my food and retail abilities on Taco Cabana. These skills came in handy when I was hired at Publicis as a Designer on Denny's.
Unfortunately, we lost that account and I was laid off… for three weeks until they figured out a way to hire me back.
When I returned, I spent time on every account in the building (Sauza Tequila, Terminix, TruGreen, Nestlé, PowerBar). I also worked on our new business pitches including Chevrolet, Dickies and Sonic.
IMPORTANT SIDE NOTE: I'm a huge music geek and it has always played a giant role in my life. I will rarely turn down an opportunity to see a live show and literally cannot count how many times I've seen my favorite bands. A few years ago, a friend and I started a project creating posters for bands at no cost. Because most bands are poor and have no money. We called it Corporate Incorporated (corporateincorporated.com) and did everything from the design to screen printing the posters ourselves.