Guest Speakers
MARTY BAUMAN
Marty is Director of Media Services and Operations for the 2010 Alltech FEI World Equestrian Games. He will present the Keynote Address, “The Final Leg to WEG,” on Friday morning at 9:15 a.m.
Marty founded Classic Communications in 1979. He has built his company into a well respected public relations, marketing and event management firm specializing in the equestrian sports world.
After building a reputation for developing and implementing creative and successful marketing programs, Marty was hired in 1990 as Director of Public Relations for the United States Equestrian Team (USET), a position he held until 2004 when the USET became the USET Foundation. During that time, he was selected by the United States Olympic Committee to serve as equestrian press officer at three Olympic Games. In 1998, he served as Chairman of the USOC’s Olympic Public Relations Association, the first time the position was held by someone other than a member of the USOC staff.
Marty served as press chief for the last seven FEI World Cup Finals held in the United States, as well as for the 1993 FEI World Pairs Driving Championships. He oversees public relations for some of the nation’s biggest equestrian events including the Rolex Kentucky Three-Day Event, The Hampton Classic and the Lake Placid Horse Show where he will be heading next week for his 30th year. He also serves as Executive Director of the Show Jumping Hall of Fame and Museum which is moving from its long-time home in Tampa, FL to the Kentucky Horse Park where it will have its grand opening next month.
In 2003, he published his first book, Kentucky Three-Day Event, A 25-Year Retrospective, a review of the first 25 years of the nation’s premier equestrian competition.
MARLA BICKEL
Marla Bickel is vice president of Blood-Horse Publications in Lexington, Kentucky. Blood-Horse Publications is a multimedia publishing company that traces its roots to 1916. The Blood-Horse is the leading weekly Thoroughbred racing and breeding industry magazine with a paid circulation of 24,000. The company also publishes The Horse, a monthly equine health care magazine; Keeneland, a quarterly regional lifestyle magazine; and equine related books, newsletters, videos, webinars, online data products and a family of websites. Marla heads the operations division which includes: e-marketing and audience development, production, finance, human resources and technology. Previously, Marla was the enterprise resource director for Highline Media and publisher for The National Underwriter Company.
ROBERT HENDRICKSON
In 1993, Rob Hendrickson limped out of a beat up Oldsmobile in Texas just having returned from the Frontier Days Rodeo in Cheyenne, Wyoming. Nursing a career-ending injury, he hung up his rodeo spurs, picked up his sketchpad of inventions and entered an entirely different arena.
“Cowboys always think there is no life after rodeo - getting a real job is the end. I quickly learned it was the beginning.”
As a rough-and-tumble young man, he would never have dreamed his future would one day slingshot from rodeo cowboy in Caputa, South Dakota, to a marketing, creative and Internet director living in Fort Worth, Texas.
Fortunately for Rob, that beginning was found in the pile of product and design sketches he had amassed over the years and a passion for the Internet and new technology. Hendrickson attended Hays State University in Hays, Kansas, one of only a handful of colleges that provide both design and rodeo programs.
For 15 years, Rob has been responsible for developing and improving brand strategy and using the Internet to improve business and marketing for companies that range from start-up to Fortune 500.
Rob is a strategic executive with proven success using strategy, creativity and technology to save money, increase customers and improve innovation. He has worked with executives developing marketing and Internet strategy for Sony, Blockbuster, GameStop, XM Satellite Radio, Western Horseman, Quarter Horse News, Barrel Horse News, HorseCity.com, Alaska Magazine, Horseman’s Yankee Pedlar, Gray’s Sporting Journal, Justin and Texas Industries.
His recent personal business successes include entrance onto the national market for his first patented inventions, SmartMarks - an innovative reading accessory and Coozer - a beverage accessory.
Over the years, Rob has spoken to over a hundred business groups, associations and events. Rob presents two sessions on social media on Friday afternoon. He serves as a panelist on making money online in 40 Ideas in 40 Minutes and presents a breakout for small publisher on selling integrated media packages on Saturday morning.
Rob currently resides on acreage outside of Godley, Texas, with his wife Jodi, publisher of fringecowgirl.com and daughters Ollie and Scout.
SAMIR "MR. MAGAZINE"™ HUSNI, PH.D.
Samir Husni, aka "Mr. Magazine"™, is the director of the Magazine Innovation Center at the University of Mississippi, School of Journalism. He is also Professor and Hederman Lecturer at the School of Journalism.
Dr. Husni is the author of the annual Samir Husni's Guide to New Magazines, which is now in its 24th year and the editor of The Future of Magazines. He has presented seminars on trends in American magazines to the editorial, advertising and sales staff of the magazine groups. He is "the country's leading magazine expert," according to Forbes ASAP magazine, "the nation's leading authority on new magazines," according to min:media industry newsletter; "a world-renowned expert on print journalism" according to CBS News Sunday Morning and The Chicago Tribune dubbed him "the planet's leading expert on new magazines."
Dr. Husni is the President and CEO of Magazine Consulting & Research, a firm specializing in new magazine launches, repositioning of established magazines, and packaging publications for better sales and presentations.
When he is not in his office reading magazines, Dr. Husni is at the newsstands buying magazines.
Dr. Husni presents two sessions on Friday afternoon.
BILL SHELTON
Bill Shelton represents the rare combination of business entrepreneur and advertising creative. As Co-Founder and President of “micro-agency” Left Field Creative, Shelton and his partner Terri Lacey have developed a reputation for wrestling accounts and project work away from larger, more traditional agencies. The creative duo opened Left Field in 1996 at the request of their first client, CITGO Petroleum.
Innovative and unconventional, Bill carries a reputation as an uncompromising strategist, whose work creates lasting bonds with consumers. Outspoken about advertising and marketing produced only to win awards, yet passionate about truly great work, Shelton challenges conventional thinking, always looking for new ways to reach the hearts and minds of people on a deeper, more emotional level.
Bill’s experience ranges from consumer packaged goods to agriculture, on a diverse mix of accounts including Purina, Anheuser-Busch, John Deere, Monsanto, Lender’s Bagels, Aunt Jemima, CITGO Petroleum, NIKE, Midas Automotive and more.
During his 25-year career, Bill has won awards in competitions from New York to Los Angeles to London. In some of his most memorable work, Bill created a sadistic, weed-hating farmer to help sell herbicide, helped make Dave Lennox a household name in the 1980’s and 90’s and helped NIKE steal the show from “Official All-Star Sponsor” Reebok at the NBA All-Star Game. Besides creating great work, Bill has also served as a judge at prestigious advertising competitions including the Clios, Addy’s, and NAMA’s.
On Saturday, June 19th, Bill will host two “must see” sessions designed to help jump-start sales, boost readership, make your publication more relevant to readers, and uncover new revenue streams that will make you an invaluable resource to advertisers.
In his first session, Building Your Brand: Creating Lasting Emotional Bonds With Your Consumers, Bill will share Left Field Creative’s highly successful approach to creating a comprehensive brand identity, position and personality for your organization. This step-by-step process will give you the tools to start re-branding and re-positioning your publication the moment the session ends. This highly popular program recently helped St. Louis-based charity Our Little Haven develop a brand position that scored an astounding 99% approval rating with both existing and potential donors – with one supporter commenting, “If you had explained what the organization does in these terms in the past, I would have started giving you money a long time ago.”
In his final session of the day, Marketing In The Moment And Beyond, Bill will provide you with strategies and tactics to help you take full advantage of the opportunities in today’s rapidly changing media environment. You’ll learn:
- How to make your publication more valuable to readers.
- Strategies for engaging loyal legions of followers through social media.
- Programs to increase loyalty among top advertisers.
- Tactics for creating new revenue streams by using existing assets in new innovative ways.
- Problem solving techniques to identify opportunities you probably overlook every day.
Bill and his partner Terri Lacy live just blocks from the historic Anheuser-Busch Brewery (and the Clydesdales) in St. Louis’ National Historic Register Neighborhood of Soulard, where they are currently in year 13 of what they once considered a 5-year home rehab.
A life-long baseball fan, you’ll usually find Bill following his beloved St. Louis Cardinals or researching pre-WWI baseball players, games and history. When not at the ballpark or following the game on TV, radio or his iPhone, Bill enjoys spending time with the family’s “four-legged children,” Bull Terrier, Lana and Quarter Horse, Ziva.
A graduate of Kentucky’s own Murray State University, Bill is a popular speaker and guest lecturer. He also serves on the Board of Directors for Stray Rescue of St. Louis, the nation’s premiere urban dog rescue program, devoted exclusively to abandoned, abused and unwanted street dogs, and the City of St. Louis’ Third District Police Partnership.
DR. C. JILL STOWE
Dr. Stowe provided consultation and data analysis services for data collection and analysis for the AHP Equine Industry Survey designed to gauge participation trends in the U.S. horse industry. This was the largest survey of hands-on owners and managers of horses in the United States ever conducted, and it was made possible by the sponsorship of Intervet/Schering Plough Animal Health and Pfizer Animal Health.
Dr. Stowe is an assistant professor of Agricultural Economics at the University of Kentucky. She has developed and prepared a presentation on the results of the survey, which will be presented by Michelle Kibler on Friday, June 18 from 10:30 a.m. to 11:15 a.m.
Michelle Kibler is a Master’s student at the University of Kentucky’s Agricultural Economics Department. She moved to Kentucky three years ago when she enrolled in the Kentucky Equine Management Internship where she worked for a thoroughbred breeding farm for two and a half years. During this time she transferred from The Ohio State University to complete her undergraduate degree in Agricultural Economics which was completed in December of 2009. She has been involved with horses her entire life through working on farms, competing in jumpers and eventing and as a part of the Ohio State Equestrian Team.
MILTON C. TOBY
Milt Toby is an attorney, author, and photographer with a lifelong interest and involvement in the horse industry. He has been writing professionally about horses since 1972, first as a staff writer for The Blood-Horse and more recently as a freelancer for a number of publications. The author of five books, including The Complete Equine Legal and Business Handbook and Ruffian, Milt blogs about equine law at www.thehorse.com and contributes a monthly column to the Paint Horse Journal. Wearing his attorney’s hat, Milt has drafted publishing contracts for several magazines. He is Chair of the American Society of Journalists and Authors’ Contracts Committee, which reviews publishing contracts for writers.