Heidi Sterricker

“I’m Heidi Sterricker and I’ve been a supporter of the United Adworkers since its inception in 2001!  I became Executive Director in 2008  and still hold the title today. I’m proud to be part of such a talented and passionate group of professionals.”

Nick Pipitone

Nick Pipitone is the president of the Untied Adworkers and is also the creative director at Milwaukee ad agency Jigsaw. In his spare time he’s a musician (theripoffartists.com), an amateur photographer (pipitographer.tumblr.com), the father of 2 beautiful children and a die hard Cub fan.

Chris Jacobs

Chris Jacobs is the Executive Creative Director at C-K. Before joining C-K three years ago, Chris was a creative director at The Martin Agency leading brands like UPS, BFGoodrich, Olympus and Walmart. Outside of the office, he spends as much time as he can with his two daughters and his three Nikon cameras.

Scott Schwebel

“Hey, I’m Scott Schwebel, ECD at Hanson Dodge Creative. MKE fan and believer in its creative economy.”

Scott Lynch

A past President and founding member of the United Adworkers, Scott Lynch is the current President of Arsenal Advertising. He is quite convinced that he was the last person in the industry to get an entry-level copywriting job without going to a portfolio school.

Joe Sutter

I’m Joe Sutter, Chief Creative Officer at GMR and in my second year on the board. I’m interested in all things creative and continuing to drive awareness that Milwaukee is the hottest creative community in the Midwest.

Mitch Markussen

Mitch moved back to Milwaukee after 3 years in Atlanta. While in Atlanta, he worked on such brands as Toyota, Buffalo Wild Wings and various campaigns for the ad council, as well as trying to destroy the myth about there being a war of northern aggression. He also spent time at Target in Minneapolis and in Omaha, Nebraska. This is his second tour on the Adworkers’ board.

Travis Knutson

I’m Travis Knutson, Interactive Director at Thirsty Boy. I’m heading into year two on the Adworkers board and the best part for me has been the chance to meet and collaborate with some amazingly creative people in the club.

Michael Vojvodich

Michael Vojvodich, Associate Creative Director at Laughlin Constable, was born and raised in Milwaukee and has spent the majority of his career here. These are only two of the many reasons he’s proud to be a Adworker board member and to help promote the great creative talent within this community.

Dan Augustine

Dan Augustine is the Senior Art Director for Noise, Inc. and has supported the creative community since coming to Milwaukee in 1999. When he’s not at the shop, he’s either teaching advertising at one of the local institutions, home writing or drawing, or warming a barstool at Hinterland.

Laura Gainor

Laura is the Social Media Manager for GMR Marketing. She started with Adworkers as their intern in 2005 and honored to be on the Board after returning back from Charlotte. It is the best organization to meet some of the most creative people in the city. Join now.

I’ve also been proud to serve as your United Adworkers President for the past two years. I’ve enjoyed nearly every minute of it. The MKE 99 Shows, the golf outings, the trivia nights, the speakers like Madmen, J.J. Sedalmeier, Google, all good stuff and plenty more to come. In fact, next year there are already a couple high profile speakers booked, the return of our Battle of the Bands, and several other events, as well as a newly formatted web site. I’d love to go into more detail, but I don’t want to steal the thunder of our incoming president, Nick Pipitone from Jigsaw. I’m excited to watch from the sidelines as Nick takes the reins leading the best advertising club in the country.

Speaking of changes to the board, we’ll be welcoming new board members with the New Year. Special thanks to Heather Aldrich from Serve for her service this past year, and Steve Farr from Purple Onion, for his dedication these past three year. Getting to know them and all the other board members over the years has been a highlight of my service.

Joining the board are a couple of new faces and a couple of old ones. Scott Lynch, Co-Owner/Creative Director from Arsenal Advertising and Mitch Markussen, a Creative Director from BVK will return for 2010. Both spent time on the board in the past, Scott was a former President in the club’s infancy. Travis Knutson, ACD from Thirsty Boy and Joe Sutter, Chief Creative Officer from GMR will also join, bringing a fresh energy and perspective the club.

I would be remiss if I didn’t take this opportunity to thank our Director, Heidi Sterricker, for a great couple of years working together. Thank you for all your energy and dedication to this club. You’re a true asset to its continued success and a consummate professional and a dear friend. To borrow Dorothy’s departing line to the Scarecrow, I think I’ll miss you most of all. It’s been a great ride.

There you have it. As they say, “Everything old is new again.” New board members, new president, new events, new web site and more great speakers. As for me, I’m going to return to civilian life. I bid you farewell, adios, sayonara, au revoir, auf wiedersehen, doviđenja, Godspeed. For longer than half this organizations existence I have been a part of this board. Not being involved will be strange to say the least.  Especially paying for my membership and events.  Wait, maybe it’s not too late to stay?

XOXOXO,

Joe Ban

What else did we learn? Well, I learned every team is pretty adept at recognizing logos, even when it’s just part of one. I also learned fonts are hard to recognize-even for BVK’s Renal Jerky team who knew only 3 of the eight. I’m not going to mention how many art directors made up that team, but you know who you are, Rich Kohnke. Lastly, I learned “Chachi” is Korean for “Penis” which explains the crazy high ratings for “Joannie Loves Chachi” in Korean speaking communities, like Korea.

It was great seeing you all, I hope you enjoyed it despite your final scores. It was especially nice to see new teams participate from Hanson Dodge, Hoffman York and  Serve. For newbies, they all did fairly well, coming within 2-4 points of placing in the top three. Special thanks to C2 Graphics for prize donations; Splice Audio for speaker/mic donation; C-K for a prize donation, Heidi Sterricker for putting it all together and GMR for the entertaining doodles on your answer sheets. Now you can all let your brains return to their mushy state of being. Thanks for playing.

To sign up your team, please see the registration form and you can pay online at
http://uawtrivianight.eventbrite.com

Important downloads:
Trivia Night – RULES
Trivia Night – SIGN UP

Thanks again to all our golfers, sponsors and prize donators. We couldn’t have had the fun without you. We also wouldn’t have been able to try to hit a rep with our drives, enjoy an ice cream craft service table, goof in a photo booth, indulge in carrots and Gatorade, and be mesmerized by belly dancers. Thanks again!

I am embarrassed to say I missed one important “thank you” the evening of the Outing–but hopefully I can make up for it here to a larger audience. Very special thanks to Heidi Sterricker for all her work putting this together. It is far from easy and extremely frustrating at times, but she always presses on with a great attitude making sure everyone enjoys themselves. As I mentioned to a member who emailed us regarding the Outing and its success, we’re extremely lucky to have her not only as our director, but also in this market in general. Thank you, Heidi. I’m looking forward to working with you on the 99!

I bid you a fond farewell, Steve, Sandy, Andrew, Steven and Mike. Thank you for your dedication, sacrifices and sharing your talents these past 2-3 years. We return you to your families, jobs and interesting hobbies. By “interesting” I mean “kinky”, right Steven?

The not-so-coveted Lamp of Knowledge trophy went to Independent Team #2 with 47 points, followed closely by second place team, Independent Team #1, with 44.5 points. I don’t know who named their teams, but I’m guessing there may be some more thought put into it for the next challenge, maybe a whole three seconds. Either way, it’s nice to see #2 best the self-proclaimed #1 to become the real #1 making the fake #1 the real #2 (insert poop joke here). Rounding out the top three was BVK #3, “Trivia Brokers”, with a score of 41.5 inching out Purple Onion by a point and a half. The other six teams had scores ranging from 39 to a rather depressing 15. But in defense of that last place team, they only had three players. Good news is they still won five boxes of Franzia’s finest, presumably to punish their few working brain cells.

Here’s an uninteresting fact: none of the banana is used to make banana oil, it’s a synthetic compound named for its smell! I learned that, and how nobody likes questions where the answer is “none of it”. I also learned 10 rounds is too many. We’ll probably go back to 8 rounds like we had last April. It’s a work in progress, people. The Sports category may make a comeback, Song Lyrics will not. I also learned a goat’s pupils are rectangular in shape and, according to their score sheet doodles, many art directors are confused about the shape of male genitalia.

Thanks again to Purple Onion for donating Bucks tickets for second place; Freight Train and the good folks at Lake Front Brewery for their donation of beer and beer drinking paraphernalia for third place; Mary Pat Cupertino-Fischer for helping write the questions (no, song lyrics was NOT her doing); Clara Beck for helping as our lovely waitress (you people don’t tip nearly enough—that’s me talking, not her); Club Garibaldi for their hospitality; and of course, Heidi for putting together yet another very fun event.

Feel free to post category suggestions, or any other thought you might have. We will take them all into consideration. I look forward to seeing you all at the next Team Trivia night, possibly in late January. By then maybe you’ll be curious to know which farm animal’s penis is shaped like a corkscrew. I have some rough sketches on score sheets to prove it.
Joe