The Inn at Richmond & Berkshire Equestrian Center
“The Berkshires”
Location: Richmond, MA
Role: Investor, Producer, Designer, Marketer, Contractor
Services Provided: Brand Development, Logo Design & Execution, Website & Social Assets, Email & CRM Promotion, Public Relations, Social Media & Search Advertising, Photo/Video/Content Development, Management Consulting, Intellectual Property Research.
After a sixth visit, this last one with snow to my waist, I decided this Farm with a history full of stories deserved what it was asking for. Its long-time owner, with eighty years of experience developing destinations and real estate properties like this, it has been an honor to work so closely. That is, an overhaul from the front porch to each of the three suites, two bedrooms, and two cottages. But, it didn’t need construction or any teardown. It needed to be re-imagined and re-designed so what was already there, but dormant, could be brought back to life although with a new look and energy.
Ten dumpsters of trash and unneeded everything had to go. Plus, the sixteen groundhogs, eight foxes, rats and mice all needed to be moved or removed from the property. And, three beautiful rescue horses needed a new home.
Essentially closed for ten years, a refresh and facelift was top priority. From paint to polish, sinks and toilets, furniture to wall hangings, and dishes to cookware, were added. New colors and linens, music and sensuous smells introduced the Inn to neighbors and a community that had forgotten it existed.
With a chef in-residence, breakfasts and events, plus a music venue in a centuries-old barn, all senses were back, intact. A new lit sign along the narrow road from Pittsfield to Stockbridge, plus new websites and marketing, it proved that indeed, guests would return, and new ones would discover it.
Up next: the Farm’s Equestrian Center. Ten horses, barns incredible indoor and outdoor rings for top riders and a Grand Prix-level trainer, looking to grow.
Performance Marketing Agency
(name withheld for competitive reasons)
Location: Texas
Role: Executive Advisor, Marketer
Services Provided: Executive Management Consulting, Lead Development & Demand Creation, Ownership Structure Evaluation, Labor Assessment.
Thirty years of various entrepreneurial venture experience has given me the ability to tune-in and listen to challenges from a position of understanding and empathy. These are wrecking ball times and top executives are quietly seeking fresh perspective and an experienced confidante to work side by side with them. Most struggle with the new world chaos of a shifting culture and people’s needs about how and where they want to work. It is dead serious and wrong decisions can wreck formerly successful companies. Sitting in a co-CEO seat, the view is difficult to interpret but choices have to be made quickly, and the financial implications are significant. Working from a consultant’s seat and balancing this with growth demands from owners and investors, I see mostly companies that are either losing their way and their story or, they’re about to. It’s a bit of a high-wire act to listen intensely for candor and offer recommendations when an executive’s own sense of self-discovery is the key ingredient. Sometimes, it’s just hard to reveal and harness.
ESU East Stroudsburg University, Entrepreneurship Studies
Location: East Stroudsburg, PA
Role: Educator, Producer
Services Provided: Entrepreneurial Curriculum Development, Photo & Video Asset Capture & Marketing Applications, Email & CRM Creation & Execution, Data Analytics, Student Seminars & Teaching, Leadership Coaching, Business Plans & Funding Applications For Startup Ventures.
Adding Covid’s accelerator effect to an already anxious and often sequestered academic life, student engagement has become academia’s biggest challenge. Attendance at college football games still fills a stadium but, back home, the gap between teacher and college is very real. And, it’s widening.
To the champion of entrepreneurship inside an Innovation Center, Mary Frances Postupack, VP Economic Development and Entrepreneurship, this was a near-crisis that needed intense focus. A grant from the Appalachian Regional Commission to the rescue! Collaborating together to create an entirely new program, plugged into the university’s existing academic curriculum, we developed a hands-on, hybrid approach and real-life entrepreneurial experiences. With thirteen sessions, using expert speakers from across the country, in all different industries, workshops and business pitch competitions, students have stepped in to develop their ideas. Having a front-row seat and working intensely with such raw talent is extraordinary.
The Jazz Loft, Monteleone Guitar Festival
Location: Stony Brook, NY
Role: Producer, Experiential Marketer
Services Provided: Brand Development, Logo Design & Execution, Website & Social Assets, Email & CRM Promotion, Public Relations, Social Media & Search Advertising, Photo/Video/Content Development, Management Consulting, Sponsorship & Fundraising Activities, Musical Instrument Investment & Retail.
How do I activate my love for music, jazz in particular, and iconic instruments to a broader audience? Although the musicians and artists are not, most of these guitars are hidden away in living rooms, closets and museums. Would an audience show up? Could it make money? Is there too much competition from other jazz festivals? Are there enough guitar players and fans, who love jazz, that would fight traffic to get there? I love a challenge especially when the stakes are high and the potential is tangible, not just by some late-night dreamy imagination. If done, it had to be great. Audiences are understanding, but judge
My personal and professional experiences have always been side-by-side with a partner. Overcoming the obstacles and solving for these tough questions became possible through a newly-formed relationship with the CEO of The Jazz Loft, a combination of museum, education and performance space.
Tom Manuel was the perfect partner. With his doctorate in jazz history, a re-imagined and rebuilt historic building designed and constructed with funds from a public trust, A-level musician talent and connections to global institutions, his belief in growth was immediate. But, designing a program that wasn’t just music, but an experience over two days and five performances and hundreds in the audience was what this Festival needed.
It already had the named, world-leading guitar builder John Monteleone in its brand, and that was the second piece. The last, a team of highly accomplished social and public relations experts, and a sponsor ready to commit funds, time and his expertise, and we were off.
Two days. Five performances. Fifteen musicians. Hundreds in the audience. Fifteen hours of music. Four out of five shows sold out. Twelve sponsors.
Profits. Success.
On to 2024!
“A Second Chance”, “For the First Time”
Location: Shot on location in Central Pennsylvania
Role: Producer, Co-Writer
Services Provided: Brand Development, Logo Design & Execution, Website & Social Assets, Email & CRM Promotion, Public Relations, Social Media & Search Advertising, Photo/Video/Content Development, Music Composition & Production, Award Show Public Relations, Intellectual Property Investigation & Licensing.
The life I pursue, I wear on my arm. Creating opportunities for people to self-discover their potential is my mission. Through up-close, hands on, five-sense experiences is what I believe is needed to break through the noise of life surrounding us and in our own minds. Sometimes, it’s a hike in the deep woods with a dear friend or a teambuilding adventure with co-workers. To escape, wander and wonder, we need to be there. Telling stories about it or being there yourself. Fully aware and straight in.
In a world where what we see has become most dominant, I often use documentary films to reveal these stories. A Second Chance and For the First Time were created to help show, not tell, human stories with vivid characters to help explain adventure. With an invested business, Adventure Explorations, just starting up, my partner and I learned how little consistency there is in how people describe it. To a solo traveler, an adventure might be eating dinner alone. To another, climbing a steep hill might be and, for a foodie, eating an unknown food with spices they’ve never tried could be.
In each of these films, real people revealed their stories in ways we could not have possibly imagined. Nicky, in A Second Chance, was invited to rock climb and knew she’d be in a film. At eighty feet up, harnessed and safe from above and below, she stopped climbing, put her head on a rock and paused for five seconds. Not knowing what happened, I called her later after the day was over. She explained that, in that moment, her life to that point was mostly broken. Her courage and inspiration thereafter became a lightening rod to for her to tell it. Similarly in For the First Time, all in the film were literally first-timers. On the water, in a boat, on a river as giant as Pennsylvania’s Susquehanna, their day told a story of emotions never felt, the touch and smell of fresh water, and a primal connection to nature they couldn’t have imagined. To pull this off required building a full film and audio crew, a director, “actors” with life experiences and not professional, special permits, adventure guides, drones, boats and all of the required gear. The quality had to be at a level where the films could win awards, and they did. Sixteen.
The investor, LHF Holdings, was able to use these documentaries to help build awareness for one of its businesses very successfully and plans to continue their use for other projects.
Acquired of the Angels, The Lives and Works of Master Guitar Makers John Angelico and James D.
Aquisto
Writer: Paul William Schmidt
Roles: Producer, Marketer
Services Provided: Brand Development, Logo Design & Execution, Website & Social Assets, Email & CRM Promotion, Public Relations, Social Media & Search Advertising, Photo/Video/Content Development, Management Consulting, Sponsorship & Fundraising Activities, Book Publishing & Distribution, Intellectual Proprety Investigation & Management.
To get accelerated awareness and recognition of expertise, a highly-published book targeted to afficionados and experts can catapult old-fashioned subject matter knowledge to a coveted level. The writer, Paul Schmidt, achieved this through a combination of academic fluency as well as access to the
history of archtop guitars and the builders who created it. Adding the perspectives from well-known musicians who both owned and performed with guitars from these two Masters, brought real-life A-list credibility. Purchasing the rights to two earlier editions and co-producing the third, a second investor and I have brought increased awareness, instruments and, with the Montelone event, increased sponsorship dollars to jazz guitar events such as the Artisan Guitar Show in Harrisburg, the Woodstock Luthiers Showcase, and the Monteleone Guitar Festival at the Jazz Loft in Stony Brook (NY).
