I make job / career changes pretty frequently, and I am remiss in not telling you what I’m doing.
It is now mid-September 2007.
I am employed full-time as Vice President, Director of Marketing for Vintage New World (more about that below).
I’m on the Board of Directors for Ukiah Players Theatre, and the Arts Council of Mendocino County.
I do some communications work for Ukiah Players Theatre (media relations, web site content, e-mail list, etc) on a volunteer basis.
I’m working on several theater productions:
… acting in “The Regifters” at UPT (Ukiah Players Theatre) in December 2007
… directing and performing in “Are We Almost There?” at UPT in February-March 2008
… writing, directing and (probably) performing in a word-for-word short story piece at UPT in June 2008
And I participate in the WAG at UPT … that’s the “Working Artists Group” that recommends a slate of plays and musicals for each UPT season.
So, what does the Vice President, Director of Marketing for Vintage New World do?
Vintage New World is an international wine marketing company. We make and sell some of our own wines, and we buy inventory from other wineries we represent (and we are the exclusive U.S. national wholesaler for those wineries). We resell that wine to local wholesalers around the country (or in other countries).
We have regional sales managers who are responsible to help local wholesalers sell the right wines to the right accounts (shops, bars, hotels, restaurants, etc), in the right quantities and at the right prices. We don’t sell wine directly to consumers.
VNW is also responsible for the marketing and promotion of the wines we represent. That’s my job. I design new brands (from initial concept through finding wine and designing labels) and manage brand strategies (how much of each type of wine we should have made for us, plus where and how we’re going to sell that wine). I identify, refine and communicate the “sticky” stories about each winery and wine … the stories that will help people remember those wines and want to purchase them. I manage designers who are working on labels and maps and videos and brochures and websites. And I work with my long-time comrade Rusty Eddy, who does media relations work for VNW.
My boss is Rich Hanen. He lives in Davis, California (after living in Perth, Australia for four years). I worked for Rich in the 1990s, at an earlier incarnation of Vintage New World. Rich is the President of the company, and is my link to the parent company of VNW. That company is headquartered in Hoquiam, Washington. It manages timber lands in the Northwest, and is one of the largest table grape producers in the USA (with thousands of acres of vineyard in California). It also owns wine grape vineyards in Paso Robles and Walla Walla, and is developing wines from those vineyards.
Today I’m working on the creation of two new Washington State brands (Stormchaser and Buried Cane). And I’m doing marketing work with Clayhouse (Paso Robles), Tom Eddy (Napa), and four Australian wineries (Capel Vale, Juniper, The Lane / Off The Leash, and The Yard).
I talk on the phone a lot. I type on my new laptop a lot. And I think about wine a lot. And then I do some theater.
