WHO am I?
I am a marketing strategy, sales and event planning professional with an emphasis on creative consumer-facing activations, client relations, and cultural impact. With over 10 years of entrepreneurial marketing experience, I’ve found that creative and idea-led strategy, as well as large-scale event curation and management, have emerged as my passion points. Seeking a fast-paced and collaborative work environment that allows for these passions to produce measurable and successful work on a larger stage.
LIFE STORY
I am simply a vessel of old movie quotes and pedantic knowledge.
You could say that I have integral field experience in electrical engineering, but that’s a lie.
I am first and foremost a creative and second and…most…a musician.
I grew up in Golden Valley, Minnesota (The Cadillac Brougham of Minneapolis suburbs), the youngest of three brothers and that family’s generation.
I became obsessed with music at an early age. My dad sneakily summoned me downstairs one Saturday afternoon and made me listen to Foreigner’s “I Want To Know What Love Is” twice while smugly staring at me with a “you’re welcome” disposition. I was hooked.
My brothers chose to learn guitar so I learned the loudest instrument available: DRUMS. I’ve found the best way to demand attention is through sheer volume.
My parents deemed beating things with a stick as “non-musical” and I was coerced into piano lessons, then forced to play the saxophone after one of my brothers MISTAKENLY decided sax wasn’t hip. I had an increasingly expensive hobby list (possible memoir title?).
In high school, I was that independent kid who did too many non-cool extracurricular activities to truly fit in, however played sports well enough to not be hassled.
Football Team Captain and Band President are usually not titles shared by an individual; could it be said that I’m the lone exception? Discuss.
I went to college at The University of Minnesota and spent two years learning more about myself than any class I skipped. I decided that pursuing music as a vocation was far more important than incurring student debt; I took off before my junior year. I believed I made the right decision after my band ceremoniously inked a deal with a record label. Through this contract we recorded and released an album, toured the country in a dilapidated death trap and learned everything NOT to do while building a brand and business. An invaluable growing experience indeed. Thankfully, we landed on our feet.
When the dust settled, I decided to never again put all my delicious, farm-fresh (never frozen) eggs into one basket. I knew I needed to diversify my creative and musical abilities.
I started producing musical projects for other bands/musicians, learning musical and video engineering programs, composing music for commercial use, producing and managing music festivals, and procuring talent for said festivals. As I worked to reinvent myself as a self-sustained creative entity, my oldest brother and his wife posed the idea of opening a family business together here in the Twin Cities. They spent time playing music in Nashville (the Minneapolis of the south), where my brother got nerdtastic with the craft and science of brewing beer. After many intense brainstorming sessions, drunken taste-testing panels and sober number-crunching meetings, we decided to start a family business in the form of a craft brewery.
Bauhaus Brew Labs was born on July 16, 2014 and we are glowingly proud parents. Bauhaus has been the proving ground for everything I learned from prior entrepreneurial experiences. Most importantly: wear your personality like a badge of pride.
We’ve not only embraced our individuality—we’ve run with it. I helmed creative direction on numerous ad campaigns Bauhaus has rolled out over the past five years and I discovered that authenticity is met with appreciation more often than not. I led our sales team, growing our brand and business into a top-ten Minnesota brewery by volume. I also plan and manage our large-scale outdoor festivals that welcome over 75,000 attendees annually.
It appears as if all of the tiny experiential bits and pieces collected through the course of my adventurous life have magically come together to form some semblance of a creative, whole person.
I am Markedly offbeat. I am distinctly original.
INTERESTS:
-PG-13 movies
-3% milk
-Strip mall karate
-X-Men, but in real life
-Scientific hyperbole
-Pre-owned Teslas
“I’m really good at being the way that I am” -Mark Schwandt