Stitches' Editorial Staff
Melinda Ligos, Editor in Chief, ASI magazines
Melinda Ligos is editor in chief of ASI's six magazines, which include Stitches, Wearables and Counselor. She is also editor of Successful Promotions and host of the Tuesday Morning Show on ASI Internet Radio. Before joining ASI, Melinda spent more than 13 years at Nielsen Media in New York overseeing a group of business-focused magazines that included Sales & Marketing Management. A former writer for the business section of The New York Times, her work has appeared in the 2001 edition of the book, The Best Business Stories of the Year. Contact: mligos@asicentral.com
Joe Haley, Managing Editor
Joe Haley, a managing editor of ASI's magazines, is a 15-year veteran of the advertising specialty industry. He writes a wearables advice column for Counselor magazine and a humor column for Advantages. He also serves as the producer of and an on-air talent for ASI TV and ASI Internet Radio. In his spare time he coaches soccer and is on the PA state coaching staff. In 2000 it named him the PA soccer coach of the year. Contact: jhaley@asicentral.com
Dave Vagnoni, Staff Writer
Dave Vagnoni is a staff writer for Stitches and its sister magazine, Counselor. He also reports for Counselor PromoGram. In November 2008, he debuted on ASI Internet Radio and continues to contribute as an occasional guest. He also supports ASI TV in a variety of roles. Previously, Dave worked as an Emmy-nominated TV reporter at multiple network affiliates, most recently at WHTM-TV ABC in Harrisburg, PA. He was recognized as one of the top TV writers in the country in 2004, honored by his peers with a National Edward R. Murrow Award. He has appeared on CNN, Headline News and Comcast Sportsnet in Philadelphia. Contact: dvagnoni@asicentral.com
Matthew George, Staff Writer
Matthew George, a staff writer for Stitches and its sister publication, Wearables, earned his bachelor's degree from Welsey College, in Delaware, where he studied media arts. While at Welsey, Matthew created its television station and helped to create its radio station. In his free time, Matthew enjoys writing jokes and short stories. He also enjoys watching older comedies, including Abbott and Costello, The Marx Brothers, and Charlie Chaplin, and listening to Frank Sinatra. Contact: mgeorge@asicentral.com
Nicole Rollender, Editor
Nicole Rollender is editor of Stitches and is ASI's director of education. Before joining ASI in October 2006, she was managing editor of two monthly trade publications. She has also served as special projects editor for The Journal of Commerce and the Shipper Group of magazines. She has an M.F.A. degree in creative writing from Penn State University and a B.A. in literature from the Richard Stockton College of New Jersey. She's taught college-level writing classes at Penn State University and the Katherine Gibbs School. Contact: nrollender@asicentral.com
Joan Chaykin, Managing Editor
Joan Chaykin is a managing editor for ASI's magazines. Prior to this, she was assistant manager/production coordinator for ASI's magazines for more than 15 years. Joan has an A.A. in journalism and earned her B.A. in communications from Holy Family University. Contact: jchaykin@asicentral.com
Phil Stitch, Product-Finding Guru
Phil Stitch, who works from his home near Bangor, ME, has been with Stitches since it was founded in May 1987. Although a country boy at heart, he loves traveling the country and finding as many suppliers as he can in his travels. (How else do you think he knows about all those suppliers and products?) In his spare time, he likes to do crossword puzzles and word finds. Contact: askphil@asicentral.com
Jill Malcolm, Editorial Intern
Jill Malcolm is an editorial intern for Stitches and its five sister magazines. She has a BA in Communications from Juniata College in Huntingdon, PA, where she graduated with distinguished honors. She is an avid movie buff, and enjoys photography, cooking and reading in her free time. Contact: jmalcolm@aiscentral.com
Stitches' 2010 Editorial Advisory Board
Allow us to introduce our 2010 Stitches' Editorial Advisory Board. Everyone on our board has graciously agreed to let us bounce ideas off them, and help us to make Stitches the best it can be.
MIKE ANGEL is vice president of marketing and U.S. sales for Melco in Denver. Specializing in business development, he has 11 years of industry experience and 19 years of sales and marketing techniques. He enjoys the Colorado lifestyle with his wife and two children.
JERILEE AUCLAIR owns and operates Phoenix-based Black Eagle Designs, a custom and stock digitizing company. She's been digitizing for more than 11 years and she's stepped out in the industry as a digitizing instructor, specializing in Tajima DG/ML by Pulse software. Her designs appear regularly in Stitches' Stock Design Gallery.
PAT BALDES is the sole proprietor of Personalization Solutions Inc., a consulting firm based in Fair Haven, MI. With more than 20 years in the decorated apparel industry, Baldes has acquired not only a wide knowledge base but also a deep understanding of personalization options in most media applications. She's a consultant at industry trade shows and special events for a select group of key industry companies. This exposure enables her to be on the leading edge of the latest technology and products available. Baldes strives to share this information with motivated business owners on an individual basis. She's also involved in a series of education programs entitled “Dare to Be Different,” which is being offered to business owners who wish to explore the options available for expanding their business base and decorating options. Information and dates are available on her Web site.
SAMANTA CORTES is founder and CEO of Fashion Design Concepts (www.fdconcepts.com). She established the company in 2000, and in two years it grew from a small startup to a well-respected industry resource located in the heart of New York City's Garment Center. Samanta has earned a reputation as a trendsetter in the field of embroidery and embellishments, known as the guru of construction and stitching techniques as well as color direction. She frequently speaks at industry events such as the International Textile Design Show and is a former member of the Color Association of the United States. She is also founder of www.savethegarmentcenter.com, a coalition of Garment Center business owners who have launched an advocacy campaign to raise awareness of the threat that urban development is posing to the existence of New York's Garment Center.
JENNIFER COX is co-founder of Kent, OH-based National Network of Embroidery Professionals. She joined a sole proprietorship needle arts and embroidery business in 1991, which was then incorporated into Designs on You Inc. She handled all the outside sales, marketing and customer service for the family embroidery business.
GINNY FINEBERG, president of Wildwood Crest, NJ-based Sandpiper Embroidery, started her shop on the porch of her house 25 years ago with a Meistergram machine. Sandpiper now has 22 heads, a wholesale and retail embroidery business, and a stock design and custom digitizing business.
STEVE FREEMAN is an industry consultant. Most recently he served as vice president of Super Embroidery and Screen Printing, based in Phoenix. He also owned and operated his own commercial embroidery business from 1989 to 2003, then lent his expertise at Carlsbad, CA-based Ashworth Inc. where he served as technical embroidery and digitizing manager.
JOANNA GRANT is the director of sales for Affinity Express, a Chicago-based international digitizing, document creation and multimedia services company, which is also a member affiliate with the Advertising Specialty Institute. Grant has been involved in the decorated apparel industry for more than 20 years.
WENDY GRAY is director of creative services for Avenel, NJ based Vantage Apparel. She's been in the apparel business for more than 20 years has 15 years of embroidery experience at Vantage. In her position, she oversees product and decoration development, and creative graphic services.
BRIAN GREUL is the founder and president of Houston-based Texas Shirt Co. Founded in 2002, Texas Shirt Co. provides embroidery and screen-printing decoration services to a wide range of U.S. and international clients.
COLLEEN HARTIGAN is vice president of sales for Laconia, NH-based Madeira USA Ltd. For the past 23 years, she has worked in the embroidery industry for Madeira. Hartigan was appointed vice president of sales in 2007, director of sales in 2003 prior to that she served as manager of sales and customer service.
JOYCE JAGGER is founder and owner of The Embroidery Coach, a training and consulting business that helps new embroiderers get started and existing embroiderers increase their bottom line. She's been in the embroidery industry for 30 years, and owned and operated a successful multihead embroidery business for 22 years. In 2006 she started www.embroiderytipsandmore.com, a membership site that features over 150 videos on topics ranging from machine basics to hooping to repairing embroidery mistakes.
ERICH CAMPBELL is a 10-year, award-winning embroidery digitizer with experience in designing, implementing and maintaining e-commerce Web sites. Long-time technology fan, ad-hoc IT staffer and constantly-connected Internet dweller, Campbell is in the process of adding social media to the marketing arsenal of Albuquerque, NM-based Black Duck Inc. (asi/140730). Using inspiration from his varying experiences as a degree-holder in English from the University of New Mexico, a 12-year creator and maintainer of Web sites, and his aforementioned 10 years in the art departments of garment decoration firms, he seeks to create informative, artistic and technology-embracing content to educate, entertain and involve both industry members and consumers of decorated apparel via social media and networking.
ANNA JOHNSON is the owner of Phoenix-based Super Embroidery Inc. Her shop operates 103 embroidery heads, while she specializes in automatic and manual screen printing, direct-to-garment printing, graphic design and digitizing. The winner of numerous awards, Johnson most recently received the 2007 ASI Spirit Award for Stitches Family Business of the Year.
DEBORAH JONES has been involved with computerized embroidery for over 30 years. During her career she has perfected embroidery techniques for many types of apparel and accessories – even shoes. She has taught classes at many domestic and international venues, and in 1998 she received the prestigious Floriani Lifetime Achievement Award for embroidery education. She shares her embroidery knowledge through www.myembroiderymentor.com, seminars, private consulting and magazine articles for publications including Designs in Machine Embroidery. Recently, she has devoted much of her time to developing educational videos for embroiderers and writing the book Machine Embroidery on Difficult Materials.
Award-winning author and international speaker JIMMY LAMB has more than 20 years of apparel decoration business experience. He has extensive knowledge in many facets of commercial embroidery and digital decorating including business startup, operations, techniques, marketing, sales, mobile, digitizing and management. His articles appear regularly in various industry magazines in the U.S. and Europe. He's also the author of The Embroidery Business Survival Guide. In addition, Lamb is a frequent speaker at industry events and trade shows domestically and internationally. Currently, he's the manager of communication for Sawgrass Technologies, where he has been instrumental in developing their educational seminars and Webinars.
BONNIE LANDSBERGER is owner of Cannon Falls, MN-based Moonlight Design. Digitizing since 1986, she now operates an independent custom digitizing service and stock design shop. She also shares her knowledge of embroidery and digitizing by writing articles for Stitches.
JENNIFER LASKY has been in the embroidery industry since 1996. Based in Tampa, FL, she's an account representative covering the southeastern United States for Melco Embroidery Systems. In that time she has had many different roles including: trainer, education, seminar, marketing and trade show director and, most recently, an account representative. She's written several articles for the various industry magazines and been hired as a speaker for industry events such as trade shows. She developed seminars that included advanced software and technical training for current customers as well as “starting an embroidery business” seminars for the entrepreneur.
FRED LEBOW is owner of Lebow Consulting, along with his wife Joanne Lebow. He is also director of nonwovens for Cotswold Industries. Lebow has been developing non-wovens and interlinings for the sewn products market for 31 years. For the past 20 years, he has focused on embroidery stabilizers and has been a pioneer in the development of many new products that are in widespread use today.
ED LEVY is president of Digitize4u Inc., a custom digitizing firm based in Montoursville, PA. Levy hosts www.embforum.com, a professional Tajima DG/ML by Pulse Users Group.
BRUCE PERRYMAN is founder and owner of Tempe, AZ-based Embroidery Unlimited Inc., which has provided services to the apparel and promotional products industry since 1989. He's an internationally published author and travels around the country presenting business and embroidery-specific seminars at industry trade shows.
BOB and SALLY RICHARDS started their embroidery business, Along Memory Lane, in January 2005, but on a limited basis due to caring for Sally's 100-year-old father. They began devoting full energy to their business in January 2007 after her father's passing. They now have three embroidery machines and a garment printer. Bob spent 35 five years in manufacturing management with an emphasis on productivity and Sally owned a cleaning business. She's been a seamstress for 40 years and also has done and still does flower arrangements.
MICHAEL SAVOIA, owner of West Hollywood-based Villa Savoia Inc., has been creating timeless embroidery for the interior design industry for nearly 20 years. His background in textiles and experience in interior design paved the way for his development in working for this niche market. His projects can be seen in such magazines as Architectural Digest, Veranda and Southern Accents. His small shop is brimming full of pillows, monograms and rich curtain borders created by hand, hand-guided and computerized machines. His emphasis is creativity and excellence in execution.
ANDREW SHUMAN is the general manager of Rockland Embroidery Inc. in Topton, PA. He joined the company in 1999 as a sales representative and later served as sales manager. He is the immediate past president of the Specialty Advertising Counsel of the Delaware Valley, and has served that organization in the capacity of committee member and membership chair over the past six years.
DANA ZEZZO is vice president of sales for Pro Towels Etc. (asi/79750), a full-service promotional products supplier in the towel category. The company's capabilities include screen printing and embroidery in-house. He has been a guest speaker around the country at industry events and for national accounts throughout his 15-year career in the industry.
GAYLE ZRELIAK is founder and president of EnMart, a machine embroidery supply company based in northern Michigan. She also owns and operates parent company Ensign Emblem, which supplies emblems and embroidered apparel to industrial laundries. She has been in the embroidery and garment decoration business for 35 years.
LEE ROMANO SEQUEIRA is co-owner of Sparkle Plenty Designs (asi/88444), a custom apparel decorator, specializing in crystal and rhinestone logos. She's also the founder of the online boutique, GoodtoBeYou.com. An avid reader and animal advocate, she enjoys free time with her two terriers and husband in the Queen Village section of Philadelphia. She enjoys all things sparkly and loves sharing promotional ideas with fellow businesses. Sequeira is also currently working on a humorous memoir.