Meet Us

Tate is Chief Creative and founder of Stokefire.  He stays challenged by providing a creative spark to nearly every project we take on, and actively leading many of them.  Tate developed the initial analytical process we use to evaluate brands, and co-developed the current implementation of our proprietary FAINTS brand analysis tool with Dr. Florence Webb.  He's an in-demand speaker for national organizations and associations, and has been featured in articles in The New York Times, The Herald Tribune, The Washington Post, and The Washington Business Journal, among others. 

Tate is the driving force behind Stokefire's involvement in the developing field crowdsourcing, working to resolve the many issues that prevent the power and creativity inherent in crowds from benefitting organizations.  He also serves on the board of the Imagine Project - a non-profit organization in the DC area whose purpose is to celebrate and advance the field of commercial creativity. 

Among the many brands he's worked with or developed are ADP, General Electric, Causeworth, Columbia Sussex, Primark, OpenText and EMC.  He's worked with a veritable alphabet soup of non-profit associations as well, including AAOE, H2E, ASAE, AIIM, STIPDA, and dozens more.  He's led discussions and talks for employees of Accenture, Canon, Deloitte, Fujitsu, HP, IBM, Kodak, The Washington Post, Xerox, and more than one hundred others.   

Florence spends most of her time wrestling process details to the ground.  She's in charge of developing internal best practices and making us stick to 'em.  She has decades of experience developing, recording, and refining procedures for everything from association business processes to school accreditation protocols.  Florence has chaired or facilitated literally hundreds of meetings, and has unilaterally prevented any (significant?) bloodshed.  In the course of her career she participated in program evaluations throughout the Western U.S. and the Pacific. 

Her M.A. and Ph.D. are in education, with an emphasis on organizational dynamics and policy development, from the University Of California at Berkeley.  At the time of this writing -- in addition to holding her position with Stokefire -- she teaches educational planning at Plymouth State University in New Hampshire.  And we're not done--recently she was selected as an Examiner for the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award Program for 2009.

Elizabeth came to Stokefire as a Summer intern in 2007, doing such a stellar job that we nabbed her for our team in 2009 shortly after she graduated from the University of Maryland with a degree in Business and Media studies. She is an avid world traveler, spending time studying in China, and volunteering in Argentina, Costa Rica, and England. Along the road she has picked up loads of real-world international marketing savvy that we count on daily at Stokefire HQ. 

Eric brings a decade of PR and advertising account management and leadership skills to Stokefire.  Eric is our primary contact for most client interaction, handling tasks that surround the creative process, from project management, to client support.  He has had the opportunity to work with and develop campaigns for great organizations that range from humanitarian assistance to entertainment, including the American Red Cross and The Spy Museum of Washington, DC.  Oh, and also throw in little shops like US Airways, the Defense Intelligence Agency, Global One, Marriott International, and Donatelli & Klein.  A Virginia Tech graduate, his agency experience includes Rosenthal Partners, The AD Group, Marcom Group and most recently Merrick Towle Communications.  Chances are good that if you're in the DC area and in advertising you know Eric - or have at least seen the award-winning work his teams have produced.  

Kathy's our organizational and leadership guru.  If you want a coherent strategic framework in which to ground your brand, this is the woman to call on.  She ensures the brands Stokefire develops match up with your organization’s ability to execute.

Kathy's experience runs the gamut from manager and administrator to leader and Board member.  Throw in author, teacher, presenter, certified strategic planning facilitator and trainer.  She's a frighteningly successful executive coach (frightening because her levels of insight are just plain scary) who "gets" organizational change from the inside out. Which is critical, because a successful rebranding effort is in large part an organizational change, not just a graphic update.

We know how good Kathy is, because we called her in to work with Stokefire as we dealt with the complications brought on by our own growth and brand update. Once we saw what she can do, we had to have her for our clients.  'Nuff said?

One half of the intern design team, Kaitlyn brings a fresh artistic perspective to the Stokefire mix.  A May 2009 graduate from SUNY Fredonia she earned a BFA in Graphic Design.  She aims to leave her mark by leveraging strong technical skills to find an emotional connection between art and audience.  A newcomer to the DC area, Kaitlyn is excited to join the Stokefire team and thrilled to leave her snow boots, shovel and blizzard stories up North in the Snow Belt where they belong.

Katie is Stokefire’s linguistics guru. With an MA in Linguistics from Georgetown, her work blends current analytical methods with the art of building differentiated, targeted names and taglines.  She has a knack for wordplay, a nuanced understanding of messages, and an ear for details.  With previous experience in sales strategy research, she thinks in systems and knows that great things are nothings unless they are properly communicated.  Also holding a BA in English from Wake Forest, Katie works with the enthusiasm and creativity gained from a lifetime of loving language.