After five years as VP Creative Director for the Penton Publishing Company in Cleveland, Ohio, responsible for the creative strategy and marketing of thirty-five business-to- business magazines, I decided it was time for a change. I began sending resumes to well respected agencies, luckily one found its way on the desk of Ron Greenstone. Fortunately, Ron was looking for a creative director. Recognizing my name from industry publications that his clients advertised in, he flew me to Melville and the next phase of my career began. I became Greenstone & Rabasca's, VP Creative Director, responsible for creating strategies and campaigns for all of G&R's clients.

Even though I loved my job I wanted to experience every aspect of the advertising business for myself, and that meant running my own agency. So we parted ways and I partnered with the owner of a small agency and over the next few years we grew Welch, Nehlen, Groome into one of Long Island's largest and most respected agencies. We had offices in Garden City and Manhattan. Although we had many New York clients, the west coast and Silicon Valley became our turf. In 2000 PC Magazine ranked WNG in the top 20 High-Tech ad agencies in the country and our client list bloomed, including Avis, Cablevision, Cheyenne Software, Newsday, Garden City Hotel, NSLIJ Health Systems, Esquire, Harper's Bazaar and Worth magazine, Scholastic, Cap Gemini/Ernst & Young and on the west coast: HP, Intel, Providian, GetSmart, and ZDNet. WNG created effective, powerful advertising through print, direct, broadcast TV and radio, online and social for over two decades.

But creating big ideas that help companies gain recognition and grow is what I do best. So, once again, I sent out a few of those pesky introduction letters. And guess where one landed? That's right...in the hands of Long Island's "Marketing Guru," Ron Greenstone. After several cups of coffee and cherry cokes (his favorite) we shook hands and decided to work together again. This time as partners in Greenstone & Nehlen Marketing.