BRAND FUEL - Key Persons
Adam was born and raised in a small town in the "Thumb" of Michigan. He graduated from Northwood University with a major in International Business. Adam has built his career around collaboration, a focus on people first, business acumen, and high-touch customer communication. These themes have enabled Adam to thrive in both corporate settings and as an entrepreneur. His passion is in finding ways where clients can express gratitude towards their employees and clients. He enjoys disrupting the high statistics that show employees and clients leaving as a result of a lack of appreciation.
Adam lives in Grand Rapids, MI with his amazing wife Brittney and their two young boys Caleb and Connor. They met in college while working as counselors at a summer camp and have been together ever since. When he's not at work he loves to be outside, camping, gardening, traveling, talking about sports, and volunteering at his church's youth group. You can usually find him wrestling with his kids or eating Chick-fil-A.
A 20 year veteran in the industry, Alex Stowe started his career with a company that primarily focused on the pharmaceutical industry and overseas production. Over the course of his seven years with Brand Fuel he has worked his way up through the ranks, beginning as a production coordinator, then moving to the creative department, and eventually becoming an account manager for some of Brand Fuel's top clients.
Growing up in Gastonia, NC, he was always involved with sports and outdoor activities and enjoyed music and the arts. After graduating from Hunter Huss High School he followed in the steps on his Father and Grandfather, becoming the third generation in his family to graduate from North Carolina State University.
Alex still loves to cheer on the Wolfpack and continues to be very active through running and playing soccer and basketball. He also enjoys going to see live music and is a devoted volunteer of Band Together. While he hates the taste of cheese, he loves Cheez-its. So much so that he dressed up as human-sized Cheez-its box one year for Halloween. He can neither confirm nor deny whether he still has it in his closet….
Allison got her start in the promotional products industry in 2002, when she began working as a receptionist. From there, she assumed multiple roles, including positions in sales support, sales, accounting, online stores and warehousing, and management. She was hired to serve in a sales support role at Brand Fuel and, in five years, has climbed the ranks to her current status as general manager.
In addition to excelling at her work, Allison is happily married to husband, Mac, and is the devoted mother of two children, Peyton and Everett. In her spare time, McLain raises funds to support cancer research through a nonprofit organization she and her family founded. "My family and I began a charitable organization in 2007 called WINN The Fight. When my uncle, Karl Winn, lost his battle with cancer in September 2007, it was a call to action for us to do something to help others with this disease." Through special events and corporate donations, the family raised the $250,000 needed to open a tissue bank in Karl's hometown of Greenville, South Carolina. Every spring, the organization, together with the Greenville Health System, hosts a Dragonboat event to continue to fund cancer research and survivorship programs.
Job Titles:
- Accounts Receivable
- Manager
Amie is originally from Erie, Pennsylvania. After finishing her degree, she married her high school sweetheart and headed out west to Colorado for seven years before finally calling Raleigh, North Carolina home in 2014. Amie has two children and in her free time, she enjoys traveling, camping, hiking, and DIY projects.
Amie has been in the numbers game since 2005. She started out in the car business, alongside her mom and then moved on to gain valuable experience in a variety of industries including insurance, non-profit, aerospace and defense, and now promotional products.
Job Titles:
- Online Services Coordinator
Job Titles:
- Online Services Coordinator
Job Titles:
- Administrative Support Coordinator
Job Titles:
- Online Services Operations Manager
Favorite Song: Take me on (Actually favorite music video but the song rocks too)
Bree is a mom of two who spends a lot of time outdoors, creating pieces of art with sidewalk chalk and hosting dance parties in her kitchen! She also enjoys traveling and photography.
Bree joined the promotional products industry in 2018 and was hooked ever since. Her second day on the job was on a flight to Vegas where she spent the week learning about the industry and immersing herself in products and brand strategies to make her clients look and feel like rock stars.
Bridget has been a part of the Brand Fuel family since 2017 and absolutely loves supporting TEAM BOSTON!
Bridget grew up in a small town in Virginia and came to North Carolina to attend Elon University and has been living in NC ever since! At Elon, Bridget studied International Business and French, and graduated in 2006. Before finding her way to Brand Fuel, she spent ten years working in International Trade Logistics, specializing in exporting food commodities to countries all over the world.
When she's not at work, Bridget loves spending time with her husband Brandon and their two little ones, Caleb & Julia. She loves to travel whenever possible, see live music, eat great food, and have a glass of wine or three with her fabulous girlfriends!
Job Titles:
- Online Services Coordinator
Job Titles:
- Online Services Coordinator
Job Titles:
- Online Services Coordinator
Well, my name is "the other Danny", and despite being born during a Philadelphia snowstorm, I still consider myself an NC native. At 9 months, my parents packed me up and moved to Cary and I've been in North Carolina ever since, playing tremendous amounts of soccer and making yet another sport out of bothering my two younger sisters. Music has also been a huge part of my life, both as a source of personal therapy and with the community it has provided. Shortly after the pandemic, I was grateful to be a part of helping local venues get feet back in the door by providing "liquid light shows" for music and genres of all kinds by adding a visual element to increase interest. Volunteering and organizing work remains a sizable aspect of my life as we look for different ways to approach a host of current global struggles. In what free time I have, I can likely be found at a concert or snuggling up with my boxer mix Emma to something tragically nerdy on the fantasy/sci-fi spectrum that I am far too excited to discuss at great depths.
Danny is a tireless connector focused on social innovation and fueling the power of marketing. With over 30 years of experience in philanthropy and marketing, he is focused on developing teams to help brands realize higher aspirations that will have a positive and sustainable impact on for-profit and nonprofit organizations.
With his 40-year friend and business partner, Robert, he is deeply invested in growing Reciprocity Road, a $250-Million distributor-supplier partnership, with a strong corporate social responsibility initiative called "BrandGood."
Outside Brand Fuel, Danny is the active co-founder of Band Together, a volunteer-driven organization that has donated over $12 million to 117 nonprofits through The Southeast's largest charitable concert event. The model? Partnership philanthropy.
He is the husband of Niccole and father of 2 bold and beautiful daughters, Tyler and Brooke.
Not content with a traditional origin story, in 1981 Eric was born as the 5th of a set of quintuplets in Ohio. Soon after, Eric's family moved to Houston, Texas, where he would spend most of his childhood taking apart electronics to the chagrin of the household, playing in the woods and eating the only legitimate Tex-Mex there is. A born entrepreneur, he joined The Olympic Sales Club in an effort to sell products to his neighbors. It was at this point he discovered how shy he was.
At 14, the Granata family obtained their first home computer, a Macintosh Performa 476. His dad had a copy of HyperCard laying around and, eager to discover all that computing had to offer, Eric installed it and discovered that creating applications was as interesting as any game. When internet access was available, he created a Geo-Cities website which, thankfully, is nowhere to be found. Eric's teenage years would go on to feature basement punk rock shows, raising parrots, playing Magic the Gathering and playing the didgeridoo.
Always a fan of movies and making goofy videos with his friends, he studied video production in Dallas where he excelled in the editing suite. In between classes and slinging beans at Starbucks, he freelanced as a graphic designer and web developer. After graduation he and his wife moved to Oklahoma City to pursue a career in video production, graphic design and web development before finding his way into the promotional products business where he worked in e-commerce, building online solutions to make the sourcing and fulfillment of branded merchandise powerfully simple. Always the technologist, he seeks opportunities to enhance brand stories with emerging technologies that create memorable and shareable experiences.
Job Titles:
- Online Services Coordinator
Holly was born and raised in Phoenix, Arizona! She studied Economics at Arizona State University where she co-founded a consumer product, DrainFunnel with her brother. She loves TikTok and still helps DrainFunnel with their socials from time to time! Holly also started working at a tech company out of college, where her role was very customer service and operations based. During this time, she moved to Hawaii and lived there for a year. She moved back to Arizona to pursue her passion for selling vintage sustainable clothes. You can find her selling at flea markets every weekend! Besides fashion, Holly loves music and playing guitar. She has also gotten into running lately and is attempting to run a 9 min mile (which is very hard for her OKAY; haha!).
Jacque is a native Virginian, but calls North Carolina her second home after spending nearly 20 years in Raleigh. She attended St. Mary's College for two years then graduated from the School of Design at NC State University with a degree in visual design. She started her advertising career as a graphic designer and art director at various advertising agencies in Raleigh, and then later transitioned to the promotional products industry after working with a distributor on artwork for a promotional order. Now, more than 26 years later, she still loves the excitement and challenges of her work. In her free time, she enjoys traveling and exploring new places, cooking, riding bikes on the boardwalk in Virginia Beach, playing mah-jongg, and walking or hanging out on the beach with close friends and her Aussie Labradoodle, Poppy.
Favorite Song: Taylor Swift - Love Story
Favorite Place to Travel: I love San Diego and traveling back to the UK
Jessie was born and raised in Fayetteville, NC. She is an Elon University alum, a North Carolina debutante and a former Late Show with David Letterman intern.
Prior to Brand Fuel, Jessie worked at Kate Spade's Fifth Avenue flagship. There, she learned the value of great customer service and developed into one of the company's top salespeople. Selling promotional products may be different than selling designer purses, but her commitment to customer service hasn't changed. She's also extremely detail-oriented and a bit of a perfectionist. (Check out her spreadsheets.)
Jessie lives in Raleigh, NC. Her hobbies include baking, mixology and taking too many pictures of her cat, Finn. She loves a good dad joke.
Johnny is a graduate of Broughton High School, attended North Carolina A&T State University, and became a Six Sigma practitioner with many successful improvement project wins at corporations such as Xerox, IBM, and BlueCross Blue Shield of NC. Johnny is also an active member of the local Raleigh community, serving on multiple Boards, implementing community impact platforms and speaks on many technology and social issues. Johnny is from Greenville, SC and loves to visit family down south whenever he can!
Job Titles:
- Online Services Coordinator
Katie is originally from a cute Vermont town but moved to the dry heat of Arizona after high school, where she graduated from college with a Marketing degree and an undying passion for Excel spreadsheets. She's rarely not on the go and has traveled to 17 countries and lived abroad in Copenhagen, Denmark for 6 months. Katie has creativity flowing through her veins and is always doing something artsy: if you're desperate to talk about cats, crafts, or VLookups, she's your girl!
Job Titles:
- Online Services Coordinator
Kim is a native of Virginia Beach and graduated with honors from Old Dominion University majoring in Communications with a minor in Marketing. Kim spent time honing her sales and advertising skills at The Virginian-Pilot newspaper and then transitioned to television advertising at Cox Media where she built her communications and account management expertise with customized, targeted campaigns on various cable networks while building strong client relationships. She then moved to Cox Business working with local business owners on solutions for their business to stay connected and operate efficiently with voice, internet and cable TV services. Her love of media brought her to local TV station WAVYTV10/FOX43/LIN Digital where she excelled in helping clients execute their marketing campaigns using television, digital, social media and SEO. She works with her clients to develop promotional product campaigns for employee recognition, new business development, recruiting, marketing / tradeshow events and much more! In her off-time Kim enjoys time with family and friends including lots of play dates with her fur baby Cooper! A couple times a year she and her husband Russ like to unplug and leave the country to vacay in various tropical destinations. She believes this is one of the keys to their happy 20-year + marriage! Kim works hard and plays hard and believes her work life balance contributes to her success.
Originally from the North Carolina mountains, Lori has been in the promotional products industry since 1997. She joined Brand Fuel's accounting department in 2007 and has worked her way up to Accounts Payable Manager. She is also the Payroll/Benefit contact at Brand Fuel. She is happily married to her husband Martin. She has a daughter and two rescue fur babies. Her hobbies are baking, cooking for her mom & dad, spending time with family, supporting her daughter as a teacher and working with the senior citizens at her church. She loves traveling especially to the mountains and taking walks with her fur babies.
Job Titles:
- National Accounts Director
Lyle is a 25-year industry veteran located in the City of Champions, aka our Boston office. Lyle was born and raised north of Boston and played all kinds of sports growing up. He attended UMASS Amherst and majored in Building Materials Technology and Management. YUP, that's a real college major, no joke. He apparently thought he was going to become a contractor, but now sells pens and foam fingers, go figure!
He still enjoys participating in "OLD MAN" soccer, basketball and is an avid snowboarder although he never ever goes out for a run. Lyle is married to his college sweetheart Gina, and they have three wonderful children: Brandi, Ethan and Charlie. They have three cats, Carla, Piper, and Marley (he's from Jamaica - see what we did there?!), although Lyle really, really wishes he had a dog! He was a long-standing board member of Medway Youth Soccer, currently serves on the Medway Parks & Recreation board, is active in the community and coached all of his kids in basketball, soccer, tee ball, etc. when they were growing up. Lyle is honest, extremely detail oriented and organized, his customers love working with him.
Job Titles:
- Online Services Program Director
Being born and raised a good midwestern girl, Mary began her career in merchandising for two national department stores in the Chicago and Milwaukee area. She enjoyed learning how to bring a product from the conceptual stage to the shelf. Being a lover of shoe shopping, when a call came from a former colleague to join a business consulting gig at a national footwear retailer, she jumped at the chance. With her new shoes and her consulting role w/ Big Blue, she eventually landed in Charlotte, NC. This is where she learned about southern winters and shrimp and grits. (who knew how amazing they are?!?)
As Mary became a permanent "southern belle," she joined Family Dollar as Business Improvement Manager where she led a process improvement project to support the newly created Global Sourcing department. After the implementation and opening of multiple overseas offices, Mary made her way back in to the business side and held Sourcing and Product compliance roles for Family Dollar.
Little did Mary realize the promotional products industry was going to come calling… When Shutterfly began to grow their Product Compliance team to support their expanding gift category, Mary joined and quickly jumped in to streamline many activities that supported the many new initiatives.
Recently Mary and her family made a move slightly north to Norfolk, VA and has the honor of holding the role of Assistant General Manager. She enjoys being able to apply her love of process improvement and project management skills to support the Brand Fuel team to ensure our clients receive the best service. Mary now realizes her 20+ year career was really just preparation for her ride on the Brand Fuel rocket ship.
On a personal side note, after moving to the South, Mary got herself a husband, Wes, became a bonus mom to two boys, and was adopted by two adorable pups. On most weekend days, you can find Mary and her "Hubs" riding their bikes on the Elizabeth River trail and hitting a local brewery for a quenching beverage after.
Mike Edwards hails from the rolling hills of the midwest, where he graduated from art school in Columbus, Ohio. Participating in the time-honored tradition of many native Ohioans, he promptly left his home state to discover the finer things the rest of the US had to offer. Settling in North Carolina, he has over 8 years of experience as a professional graphic designer and has been applying his talents in the promotional products industry since 2016.
On his time off, Mike enjoys cooking (especially grilling), bicycling & canoeing. He is a multi-instrumentalist who enjoys listening, creating, and performing music. A self-professed "dog whisperer" and lover of animals in general, Mike is the proud caretaker of a large, loud American bulldog and smallish cat. His other interests include playing croquet, attending baseball games, growing Carolina reaper peppers, and exploring new and familiar places.
Nadia was born and raised in Revere (right outside of Boston). She started her promo career right out of college (Suffolk University - go RAMS!) and is entering her 13 th year in the industry. She focuses on trendsetting and new products.
She comes from a huge and loud Italian family in case it is not obvious. When she is not in the office, you will find her snuggling up with her son, doing arts and crafts with her step-daughter, building/remodeling with her fiancé, attending a concert, or checking out a new restaurant. She loves to travel and visit friends and family in Italy whenever she can.
Nick was born and raised in Raleigh, North Carolina. Growing up, Nick always had a love for numbers, leading him to study accounting and finance at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. He is the first in his family to graduate from a four-year degree program. After graduating, he went on to gain bookkeeping and accounting experience at Harris Teeter as a Store Accountant. Nick currently holds the position of Accounting Assistant at Brand Fuel. In his free time, he enjoys watching movies, listening to music, playing video games, and hiking on local trails.
Causes Nick Supports: Anything that is used to help animals and wildlife as well as victims of cancer.
Favorite Song: Seasons of Love, Come Downstairs and Say Hello
Job Titles:
- Strategic Alliances Director
Job Titles:
- Online Services Program Manager
Favorite Song: Take Me Home, Country Roads by John Denver
Favorite Artist: Sunshine Plata Alimagno. She is a Filipino artist who uses coffee as paint and her works have been exhibited locally and in Ripley's Museum in New York City.
Job Titles:
- Online Services Coordinator
Job Titles:
- National Accounts Director