Coroflot

Resume

Patrick Shaun McNicholas
13619 Twin Lakes Lane • Tampa • FL • 33618 • 813.335.3550 • shaun@psmdesign.com


SUMMARY
Creative Executive with 20+ years of management experience in technology, creativity, design and marketing. Strong track record of driving growth and profitability through strategic planning and execution, including revitalizing established brands and businesses, developing and launching new product platforms, and identifying, executing, and integrating technology to improve business development and execution. Extensive experience: developing, coaching and mentoring high performance teams.

A fine artist by nature, Shaun specializes in thinking “outside the box” and delivering high-yield and high-performance results from people and technology, often in un-conventional ways. By combining his experience with creative teams, as well as executive management and possessing a thorough knowledge of systems infrastructure technologies and programming languages spanning all available computing environments, Shaun is able to see the big picture and achieve high-yield results from people and technology.


CURRENT POSITION
PSM Design, Chicago, IL 2001 - Present
A Graphics, Publishing, Marketing and IT consulting firm specializing in combining new media technologies, well designed infrastructure and application design, graphic design and marketing programs, brand presence and customer relationship management applications improving a company’s image to the public as well as their ability to management customer relationships and improve the R.O.I on marketing and IT investments.

Owner Operator (http://www.psmdesign.com)
• Delivered marketing and technological advancements to clients ranging from small private businesses to large fortune 500 companies.
• Clients included Bank One, Kemper Lesnik, Hope World Wide and Underwriter’s Laboratories.


EXPERIENCE
Cook Associates, Inc., Chicago, IL 2002 - 2009
Cook Associates, Inc. is a $10+ million retained Executive Search and M&A Advisory Services firm. Client base ranges from multinational corporations to early stage entrepreneurial companies, private equity and venue capital firms. Brand name clients include American Express, The Blackstone Group, Dover Corporation, GTCR, Heinz, Juniper Networking, Levis Strauss & Co., Pitney Bowes, and Sirius Satellite Radio.

Chief Technology Officer (http://www.cookassociates.com)
• Promoted internally to lead all technology initiatives.
• As a key member of the executive management team it was my responsibility to set the overall technology strategy and execution plan for the firm.
• Improved telecommunications capabilities and improved efficiency by replacing the disparate communications systems with a fully unified communications system.
• Planned, managed and executed $½ Million systems replacement to improve uptime and efficiency with all technological research and development tools in the firm; improving efficiency of all development and execution tools.
• Hired and trained an internal support staff and re-negotiated all contracts with vendors to improve relationships with vendors and reduce costs while improving overall systems efficiency and performance.
• Re-created the company’s proprietary database system using ColdFusion to improve efficiency in all levels of business development and execution reducing the cost of needed staff to deliver the companies core products using the following technologies.
• Cold Fusion Enterprise 8
• Apache running on Apple Server X 10.4.11
• Microsoft Server 2003 R2, IIS V6.0
• Microsoft SQL 2005
• Exchange Server 2003
• DHTML, JavaScript

Benchmark Imaging & Display, Park Ridge, IL 1996 – 2001
Benchmark is a full service Imaging and Display large format printing and production house. Benchmark is a one-stop shop business-to-business and business-to-consumer resource for tradeshow displays, convention displays, convention and expo graphics, retail store displays, signs and banners.

Art Director, Technology Director (http://www.benchmarkimaging.com)
• Improved Benchmark’s brand identity in the trade-show production market place by improving the visual design elements.
• Built the original website design and online brand identity.
• Managed all aspects of color and quality management and control.
• Designed and delivered the company’s internal network infrastructure to improve delivery speed for the large graphics imaging workflow by delivering a multi-platform infrastructure that combined Mac, Windows and Unix networking technologies.
• Assisted the owner in developing new product designs in the Lenticular imaging space.
•
Leona’s Restaurants, Chicago, IL 1995
Leona's Restaurants operates more than 15 pizza restaurants in and around Chicago with estimated revenue of more than $23 million. The family-owned chain offers dine-in seating as well as delivery and catering services. Catering is offered through Leona's Catering.

Art Director, Marketing Director (http://www.leonas.com)
• Managed Leona’s marketing materials delivered to the public through various mediums. From direct mail, delivery menus, in-store POP signage and menu designs.
• Delivered Menu and Brochure Designs, Direct Mail marketing, Radio and some local Television advertising, as well as in store POP development and in store entertainment bookings.

CPI Photo Finish, Tampa, FL & Chicago, IL 1987 – 1995
CPI operates portrait studios, photographic-finishing laboratories, electronic-publishing stores, and Prints Plus wall-decor locations. It operates photofinishing locations under the CPI Photo Finish and Proex names. The company also owns stores in the Prints Plus chain.

General Manager
• General store manager and trainer.
• Re-located to the Chicago market in 1991 and became the store revitalizing manager, traveling to various Chicago area stores for several months at each location to fire, hire and re-train in-store employees in an effort to improve customer relations and store sales.
• Won the regional sales award for the Midwest in 1992 for improving corporate sales by 27% in my region.

EDUCATION
Adobe MAX 2008 (San Francisco) 2008
Advanced ColdFusion and Adobe development, coding best practices for online application development using Adobe development tools.

FOCUS and AT&T User group (BCR Training) 2007
User Group annual meeting to discuss future technologies and current technology challenges in the telecom industry.

Adobe MAX 2007 (Chicago) 2007
Advanced ColdFusion and Adobe development, coding best practices for online application development using Adobe development tools.

Ascend training (Chicago) 2007
Adobe ColdFusion MX 7: Advanced ColdFusion Development

Macromedia (Adobe) Online University 2006
Certification
Macromedia Studio MX 2004 and Cold Fusion – web development, programming and design instructional course.

MicroTrain, Chicago, IL 2003
Certification
CCNA - Cisco Certified Networking Associate.

Altigen, Denver, CO 2003
Certification
Telephone Systems Installation and Management including VoIP
Altigen Certified Engineer. Altigen is a brand of telephone system designed as a highbred system for utilization of IP telephony while maintaining standard analogue telephone handsets. I was trained in order to design and install a nationwide solution for Cook Associates.

Savannah College of Art and Design, Savannah, GA 1987
1 year College Coursework Completed

OTHER EDUCATION
1994 Kellogg School of Management – Customer Service seminar (given to management at CPI photo)

1988 Professional Photography under Thomas Boatwright – Boatwright Studios Tarpon Springs Florida

1985 Pasco Hernando Community College – Hudson Florida – PASCAL, graphic design, electrical engineering

OTHER EXPERIENCE
Creative and Technical Director – International Churches of Christ Present
Serving audiences as large as 10,000+ in venues such as Chicago’s UIC Pavilion and New York’s Jacob Javits Center supervising teams as large as 100+ people; Shaun has been the technical and creative director and teacher for professional live sound engineering, lighting, video and stage design for more than 14 years, and has taught classes in use of technology for worship services in Chicago, Washington D.C. and most recently has been invited to teach at the International Song Leader’s Conference in Providence, RI.

Chairman of the Board – Localmotions Chicago, IL 2001-2003
Localmotions is a dance and performing arts school serving local children in the Austin neighborhood of Chicago. Serving as many as 40 children from grades 1 to 12. Localmotions’ primary focus is to give children from under-privileged and low-income families in the Austin neighborhood a chance to see beyond their own boundaries by providing experiences in the performing arts.

The Scholastic Arts 1985-1987
The Scholastic Arts is a non-profit organization whose focus is to promote careers in the arts for high-school aged children by providing an annual competition for writers and visual artists. Annually they have regional and national level judged competitions and award students with medals and certificates similar to an Olympic competition. Beginning in 1985 Shaun was awarded a second place standing in the State competition in Florida, then in 1986 a second place standing in the national competition and finally in 1987 Shaun was awarded a first place standing and given the highest honor from the national competition awarded a first place in the portfolio level, an honor given to only 8 students nationally.