Lance McLean www.MWD.us
EMPLOYMENT & EXPERIENCE Small Business Owner Serving the small, local businesses of Wilkes County, the Yadkin Valley and beyond with Web site design, graphic design, search engine optimization and Website hosting services they have been looking for. Until now, there's not been an option for a local, responsive, friendly, efficient and trust-worthy service provider in the North Wilkesboro area. Internet Manager Growing a small-town sign maker into a national provider of signs, decals, banners, magnets and many other niche products marketed toward other sign makers, graphic designers, businesses, churches and individuals. Using my Web design and search engine optimization abilities, I have grown site traffic, site stickiness and online sales from zero to an average of $2000 per month in only a few short months. Full-time employment. Production Manager Organized jobs, managed inventory stock and ordered replenishments, managed two to three employees, their job duties, projects and progress as well as maintained and ran all production equipment - including two large format full color printers, vinyl plotters, metal and paper shears and two PCs. In slower work-load times, I began work on the company's Web site design and search engine optimization. Full-time employment. Web Site Manager Took a local RV dealer's Web site from very outdated and truly "search engine invisible" to modern, flashy and the top ranked RV dealer Web site in the state of North Carolina. Using my skills in Flash, HTML, CSS, SEO and some ASP (self taught due to their hosting server being a Windows box), I was able to greatly improve this company's online marketing efforts as well as their overall appearance to the world. Full-time employment. Freelance Production Assisted the production manager and sign shop owner with sign, decal, magnetic and banner production and worked with the designers to help handle their extra workload. As needed employment - ended up being 40+ hours per week. Seeking Gainful Employment Upon testing the entrepreneurial waters for twelve months I stepped away from a slow-to-grow business to better support my family with full-time, set-pay employment. Vice President/Co-Owner Worked with the President to grow a small entrepreneurial business from a part-time, after hours, home based venture into a full-time corporation. Design duties included: Web site design, print-ad layout and design, image manipulation, illustration, logo creation, Flash animation and general Web site maintenance and updates. Other shared duties included: copy writing, billing, book keeping, customer relations, sales, marketing and general business manager roles. Full-time employment. Senior Web Designer Continued the Web Designer responsibilities from below with the added responsibilities of working with the other Web Designers to build their knowledge and abilities whiles improving and growing my management skills. Worked more closely with the Lowes.com programmers to integrate new site features which required my HTML front-ends and their server-side coding. Web Designer Illustrated graphical and navigational imagery as well as designed and updated page and site layouts to be consistent with corporate marketing objectives of the second largest home improvement retailer in the world. Created graphics and took photographs for home improvement library projects. Full-time employment.
OTHER EMPLOYMENT Graphic Designer - Lowe's Companies, Inc. - Wilkesboro, NC - March 1999 to January 2000 Freelance Graphic Designer - Lowe's Companies, Inc. - North Wilkesboro, NC - August 1997 to March 1999 Photographer & Sports Reporter - Wilkes Journal Patriot - North Wilkesboro, NC - January 1997 to April 1997
EQUIPMENT & SOFTWARE KNOWLEDGE Equally Skilled Design and Working Abilities on Mac & PC (Can User Both Interchangeably - Prefer Mac, But Not a Requirement), Digital and Film Photography, Flatbed Scanners, Vinyl Plotters, Large Format Digital Printers and General Office Equipment (Laser Printers, Color Printers, Fax Machines and Copy Machines) Extensive Knowledge & Use Of: Adobe Photoshop, Dreamweaver, Freehand, Illustrator, Acrobat, ImageReady, Flash, Quark XPress, File Transfer Software (FTP), FlexiSign Pro, Production Manager, PageMaker, Microsoft Outlook, Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Intuit QuickBooks
EDUCATION Associate in Applied Science in Advertising & Graphic Design High School Diploma
AWARDS & HONORS Created an interactive Flash presentation to demonstrate the step by step process of building a grill cart (woodworking project) for Lowes.com's How-To library. The initial tutorial was well accepted and I was scheduled to create more. I code-named the presentations "Build It Virtually". The name stuck and was soon, upon my suggestion to the Lowes.com Director, trademarked by Lowe's. I eventually created a total of nine Build It Virtually™ tutorials, 2002 Designed Lowes.com/Energy which was awarded "Special Recognition for Online Information" by the EPA and ENERGY STAR. Flew to Washington, DC, on behalf of Lowe's to accept the award from the EPA Administrator, Christine Todd Whitman, 2002 College Honor Graduate, 1998 Best Overall Portfolio (as judged by instructors in my class of 12 graduates), 1998 |