Dee Boyle, Brand strategist at BrandCraft Marketing in Kennewick

Age and hometown: 25, Pasco

How long have you worked at BrandCraft Marketing? 2 years

Describe your company: BrandCraft Marketing is a growth marketing firm driven by performance. We believe in well-thought strategy and execute with unrivaled marketing services through our team that contains vast and diverse expertise.

Education: Columbia Basin College

Family? Pets? I have a sweet pup named Leia and most of my immediate family lives here locally.

How long have you lived in the Tri-Cities? Almost my whole life, 18ish years.

What word describes you? Bold

Biggest flaw? My lack of patience for sure.

Biggest pet peeve? Slow walkers. Can’t handle it.

Dream vacation? Right now—Spain!

Favorite book? “Good to Great” by Jim Collins

Favorite movie? The “Star Wars” movies  Favorite musician? Ben Gibbard from The Postal Service and Death Cab for Cutie

Favorite sports team? Sports? I don’t “sports” much.

Favorite website or app? Mid-Columbia Libraries’ Libby app for audiobooks! It’s the best.

Favorite Tri-City restaurant? I could eat La Fama (Pasco) every day of my life.

Favorite thing to do in Tri-Cities? Oh man—so many things! Some of my faves are catching art shows at galleries like Drewboy Creative or Spectra, perusing downtown Kennewick, hitting all of our farmers markets, or catching music on a winery patio somewhere.

What thing would people be most surprised to learn about you? I’m not a hugger. I’m a college dropout, and I pitched horseshoes professionally as a kid.

Describe your job and how you got into it: As a brand strategist I work side by side with business owners to build and execute on marketing plans that contribute to their growth goals. Our clients will share with me their current business goals, whether it’s growing leads in a particular service line, building their brand equity so they can later sell their business, or growth in company size. Then I devise a plan to accomplish those growth goals through branding and digital marketing. I then execute that plan alongside my team of designers, writers, digital marketers and project managers.

I have only had roles in marketing, sales and communications my entire life, starting as a marketing intern at the Tri-City Americans at 14. Since then I have been blessed to have continually found mentors and network into the next opportunity, until I got where I am now without a college degree and in a growing career. It was a lot of hard work, being bold enough to ask for a chance and access to mentorship that I think could only happen in an area like the Tri-Cities.

Who are your mentors? Oh man, I have had so many mentors in my life I couldn’t possibly list them all, but here are a few.

Brian Sandy—former Tri-City Americans chief marketing officer and senior vice president of business operations. Brian was one of my first mentors at my first job and taught me a lot about the fundamentals of sales and marketing. He wasn’t my direct boss and never had to take the time to explain anything to me, but he was always willing to share knowledge. That alone gave me the foundation I was able to launch from.

Jeff and Patti Thompson—Windermere Group One owners. They were the first to give me a chance at my first “big” job break where I was running the marketing show. They taught me so much about managing people, professional collaboration and identifying client pain points—skills that have made me immensely more valuable and I will be forever grateful for that.

Torey Azure—BrandCraft Marketing owner and founder. Torey is my current boss now of almost two years and working under his mentorship has challenged me to really push the expertise I already have further. He always challenges our team to play devil’s advocate with our work to produce the best possible deliverables for our clients. Learning how to thoroughly and effectively critique work from a performance standard has taken the work I produce to a level I didn’t know I could achieve.

Toughest career decision? The toughest career decision I have ever made was actually taking the position I have now with BrandCraft. It was my dream job offer, what I had always wanted, but I was scared out of my mind for couple reasons. First, I was unsure I was ready for an agency pace, where you work on multiple projects across multiple industries every day, especially being the company’s first hire for their digital marketing department. Second, I was on top of my day job at the time as a marketing director. I was freelancing my services, and I would have to give up that side business with this new position—which would be the first time in my life I only had one job—and the idea of having all my eggs in one basket was scary. In the end, I kept up while our digital marketing contracts grew almost 400 percent in my first year, and the pace, combined with my focus without the freelance work, has allowed me to grow at a rate I never could have imagined. So long story short, do the thing that feels scary. You’ll thank yourself for it later.

What do you like most/least about your job? I love so much about my job, but I think my favorite part is how I get to see behind the scenes of so many businesses and industries. I have always been fascinated by how businesses operate and make money, and I get to talk about it all day—all while leveraging my natural skills to achieve big growth goals for clients. My least favorite part of my job is probably working with Facebook or Google’s support teams, but it’s a necessary evil. And really, if that’s the worst, it’s still a pretty rad job.

What was your first job? My very first job was as a marketing intern for the Tri-City Americans. I started at 14 and was there until 19, and I started as a bit of a game day grunt worker, and it grew into helping with promotions, team appearances, tickets sales and the team store. The job was unpaid, but gave me more than any job ever has. I learned so much brushing shoulders with all the team management, and I built a network that grew into more and more opportunities for me later. I learned the fundamentals of marketing, sales  and how to create professional connections that I ended up calling on later.

How do you achieve work-life balance? Work-life balance is something I am always working on, and for me it’s about prioritizing time management. I can easily self-sabotage myself with a calendar filled to the brim. I try my best to always leave cushions in the calendar for reset time and give myself grace when I need to say no.

Community involvement and service:

• Kennewick Arts Commission, 2018-present: The arts commission serves to enhance and enrich Kennewick’s quality of life for residents and visitors by fostering an artistic environment that promotes a sense of community, creates public venues that instill a unique identity and supports opportunities to have fun.
• TEDxRichland lead organizer, 2015-present: I am on the core team of volunteers that coordinates and produces TEDxRichland. This included developing the event theme and brand, managing and coaching local speakers and managing a full day event of live TED talks and installations.
• Drewboy Creative Board member, 2017-present: Drewboy Creative is a local 501(c)(3) art gallery in Richland dedicated to growing and showcasing local visual artists. As a board member, I handle organizing art shows, managing shows, art sales and participating in decisions for the organization.
• Pasco School District performing arts coordinator, 2007-12: I worked directly with Pasco School District performing arts teachers to coordinate and facilitate opportunities for band and choir students through camps, festivals, performances and fundraisers.
• Washington State Horseshoe Pitching Association, 2008-present: Manage and organize horseshoe tournaments across the state of Washington for senior citizens’ health and community connection.
• Tri-City Regional Chamber speaker, 2015-present: Workshop presenter and panel moderator for the Women in Business conference and Business Development University presenter.
• Washington State DECA Association, 2012-present: I am a volunteer presenter, competition judge and workshop teacher. I primarily help teach high school students soft skills required for the workforce and foundational marketing principles for today’s marketing jobs.
• Tri-City Link organizer, 2015-16: Tri-City Link is a free networking group for all Tri-Cities businesses. I helped promote the group, solidify presenters and run meetings.
• TriConf Event Volunteer, 2016-17: TriConf is a local knowledge sharing event. Anyone from the public can attend and on the first day all those who attend share what they could teach their community in 20 minutes, then we build the entire weekend conference schedule from that. I handled event promotions and day of management.
• Tri-Cities Tech Summit event volunteer, 2018-present: I work with the core organizers to promote the event and help day of with video coverage.
• Kennewick Community Education, 2016-present: I teach iPhone 101 every spring and fall session.