My second anniversary blog post is dedicated to Shelley Stickelmeyer. She served as our marketing project manager for more than a decade and was instrumental to not just the success of University Relations but to EWU in general. On a personal level, she helped me so much with my onboarding and was invaluable every single day I had the pleasure of working with her. Shelley retired in December 2025.

I have a whiteboard in my office behind my desk. Often it will have a shoot schedule, marketing metrics, or birthday message written on it. However, this past week a simple sentence in red dry erase marker was scrawled across it: I love my job.

That message, along with the cheer card positioned right next to it (PROUD TO BE AN EAG), described my thoughts perfectly as my second work anniversary at Eastern Washington University drew near.

When I left the office for the weekend, I didn’t erase the message. I wanted to make sure it still stayed on the whiteboard through Saturday, Aug. 1. Even though I wouldn’t be in the office for my actual work anniversary, the sentiment needed to remain even if the door was shut and the lights turned off.

That’s just the symbolic, corny person that I am.

A Year Defined By A Proposal

When isn’t a new employee “new” anymore? I think a good rule of thumb is after that first year. After my initial 365 days as an Eag trying to prove and endear myself to the EWU community, I went big at the beginning of Year 2. Backed by my boss, I wrote a proposal to President Shari McMahan for marketing funding to accelerate our brand evolution efforts as the region’s polytechnic.

I swung for the fences and President McMahan responded with the resources needed to truly market our brand. With the budget intact and a talented team ready to do the work necessary to achieve results, we bulldozed forward to put EWU on the streets, inside living rooms, and blowing up screens like never before.

From a comprehensive billboard strategy to a sustained commercial blitz to well-placed print ads to a massive digital rollout, our awareness numbers from our Spring 2026 brand perception study smashed those from Spring 2025. However, I will remember my second year at EWU for more than just the strategic and successful brand campaign we launched.

Meaningful Work

Although building the institutional brand should and will always be the top priority of any university marketing department, most don’t stop there—and that is certainly the case for my EWU team. During this second year, we were busy each day serving the Eastern community. We managed numerous marketing campaigns for academic programs, partnered with our admissions team to deliver them the applications they needed, marketed the third party recognition heaped upon EWU, and provided our Alumni Office the marketing support required to reach thousands and thousands of Eagle grads.

We also showed up each day to provide the marketing services needed by our campus. From design jobs to logo approval to video packages to photo albums to web work to sponsorship requests, our weekly production meeting to go over new and current projects was never dull.

Among all the work my team completed over the past 52 weeks, I do have a few favorite projects that will always pleasantly bring me back to my second year…

The River Park Square takeover we did put us in front of downtown Spokane during one of the busiest times of the year. Ryan Gaard, our graphic design supervisor, created something that was red, bold, and 100% EASTERN.

I don’t know how we did it with the short timeframe we had, but we pulled off a Super Bowl commercial. When the dust settled on Championship Sunday, we had an alumnus playing on each Super Bowl team (Seattle Seahawks and New England Patriots). Needless to say, we had to do something special. Working on an insane deadline, our ad incorporated both players and drove home Eagle Pride!

And finally, I would be remiss not to include our award-winning holiday video. I convened our first planning meeting in September not knowing how we would top our 2024 holiday video. We did.

Hatched

Believe it or not, a job isn’t always about the work. Sometimes you have to explain the work. Although execution is the most important part of the job, being able to explain, analyze, and defend it is also key.

The word I have used to describe my second year at EWU is hatched. I truly feel like I had the opportunity to hatch from my Eagle egg and fly. And when I type “fly,” I mean standing up in front of the Eastern community and describing how my team’s work is making a positive impact in the state and beyond.

I found myself in conference rooms and attentive Zoom calls a lot this past year. Some of the presentations I delivered were to Faculty Senate, EWU Associate Vice Presidents, and the EWU Alumni Association (twice!). And even though those groups are important and prestigious, I think some of my more memorable talks from my second year were to much different audiences. Having the chance to address an EWU public relations class and then seizing the opportunity to recognize the work of my team in an all-University Advancement meeting brought me the most joy.

The Team

Speaking of my team, I have reached the most important part of my second year reflection. It isn’t by accident that the word joy appeared in the sentence I wrote above about sharing the successes of my team. The seven people who comprise our marketing unit radiate joy. They are fun, caring, and intelligent.

They are also very talented. Like, seriously talented. And throw hardworking in there, too. As mentioned, I reached for the moon with the proposal I sent the president. Her acceptance dramatically changed the potential of our marketing efforts…but I had bit off a lot. It was my team’s job to chew. And chew they did. The extensive brand work they undertook (ad development, website building, content creation, etc.) was on top of everything else we did the previous year. They approached this mammoth undertaking with positivity and a ready-to-work mindset. They crushed it.

But we couldn’t have done it without the two other teams working alongside us in University Relations. Our communications unit and alumni unit provided us additional talent, support, and encouragement to promote Eastern Washington University the way it deserves. When we all weren’t working our tails off together in our Hargreaves Hall offices, we were bonding outside of it. This past year we labored to make apple cider, hit the lanes for a bowling competition, and celebrated the holidays with an ornament exchange.

On top of our fulltime professional team, I can’t forget about our student-workers and the value they bring to University Relations. We were able to sustain funding for the three student-workers I hired my first year PLUS add two more students this past year. Throughout the Spring 2026 quarter our Hargreaves Hall main suite was bustling with students as they occupied all open workstations. The energy they brought was contagious and appreciated by all.

I know I am biased, but University Relations is the place to be at EWU.

Wins

At first, one might think that “winning” in marketing is subjective. However, we do have literal wins from this past year. They come in the form of gold and silver honors from the largest higher ed awards competition. We received recognition for everything from our holiday video to radio ads to a social media video to a newspaper advertisement series. You know, stuff that pretty much runs the gauntlet of marketing.

Data is also another way to notch victories. Our efforts to promote our polytechnic identity paid off when our 2026 brand perception survey numbers topped those of 2025. The academic program marketing campaigns we spearheaded also generated results in the form of leads and enrollments. In a particularly proud moment, a new academic program will be able to start this fall thanks to the targeted campaign we launched to promote it. My team’s goal to work with Admissions to increase undergraduate applications was also realized.

But honestly, the biggest win of all—at least in my book—is that I am working a job with people who care. They care about Eastern’s mission but they also care about life beyond campus. I have an incredible boss, Eric Limburg, who I still feel indebted to two years later for hiring me. I work under the leadership of Dr. Shari McMahan, by far my most favorite university president I have ever served. My fellow directors in University Relations, Kelsey Hatch-Brecek (alumni) and Linn Parish (communications), form a bond of encouragement that is rooted in support of one another. And then of course I have the seven best professionals taking our marketing team to new heights. I would say all of that is a pretty decisive win.

———————-

Please don’t take the “wins” above to mean that I am undefeated or that there is nothing to work on. Going into my third year there are plenty of challenges awaiting. We need to take our brand positioning from the awareness stage to the understanding stage. We need to promote more academic programs. We need to convert more applications into enrollments. We need to get more Eagle gear into stores, find additional ways for EWU to get involved in the community, and do a better job of telling the state that our institution offers the absolute best value in Washington.

But for today that can wait.

On this second anniversary of my employment with EWU I am just going to be thankful. Thankful for a job that pays my bills, challenges me, allows me to march in parades with my daughter, encourages me to travel with my family to Seattle, instills pride whenever I wear Eagle Red, and empowers me to be the best version of myself. Forgive me for saying it, but I have truly hatched. Bring on Year 3.

Go Eags! Don’t Blink.