About Dan Wilson

A Brief History...

The Early Years

I was an intensely curious kid who always got in trouble for drawing during class. I've always loved to draw, and was constantly taking things apart and putting them back together again to learn how they worked.

After graduating from high school, I took a ton of classes at my local community college, and ended up concentrating my studies in art. One semester, while taking a "computer art" class, I discovered my passion for using computers for multimedia communications. Shortly thereafter, I started designing graphics for people's web sites, which became a full-time endeavor by early 1995.

Web Pioneer

I eventually began an internship at AMMG, a multimedia company in Auburn, CA, and this quickly turned into a paying position as an interactive designer. In addition to computer-based training and CD-ROM sales tools, I was their key "web guy," working on a number of high-profile web projects, where I was able to introduce numerous innovations (such as interactive car-pricing calculators, e-mailed coupons, community bulletin boards, etc.) that have become some of today's best practices.

Dot Com Hundredaire

In 1999, I left AMMG to join a promising startup, and became employee #6 at CampusEngine.com, eventually recruiting and managing a team that designed and built online-portal sites for nearly 100 leading college newspapers, and architecting a targeted banner-ad network that served over a million impressions a day to the 17-to-24 college-age demographic. While I didn't end up making a million dollars in an IPO, I did learn a ton about creating the largest impact with limited resources, and developed a greater interest marketing and entrepreneurship.

Marketing "Army of One"

After the dot-com bubble burst, I went to work for a legal software company as their Webmaster/GUI Designer. After acting as the "cartilage" between the marketing and engineering groups during the development of their key online product, I realized that my career path was now at a crossroads between engineering and marketing. I chose marketing. Due to a tough economic climate, our marketing department slowly shrank, and I took on more and broader responsibilities.

Eventually, I was in charge of the entire marketing function: designing and writing collateral, issuing press releases, creating and placing ads, managing trade shows, leading messaging workshops, developing sales toolkits, researching competitors, redesigning web sites, etc. As my role and title grew to Marketing Manager, I wanted to get more formal marketing training and went back to school, earning a BS in marketing.

Freelance

After helping boost sales and developing industry recognition, that company was acquired by a leading multinational legal-industry conglomerate, and I stayed on for about a year, overseeing the marketing transition and product re-branding before deciding to launch my own freelance business, applying everything I'd learned to help other small- to medium-sized businesses achieve success, and that has remained my focus.

On A Personal Note...

Currently

I live and work in Napa, CA with my wife, Carol, who teaches high-school math, and our sweet, gray-faced black Lab, Cletus. In my free time, I enjoy hiking, camping, playing disc golf, barbecuing with friends, watching classic films, and listening to and playing music.

Future Plans

I am looking to wind down my freelance work and find a full-time position in the wine industry. I would be a great addition to just about any winery, that needs a well-rounded marketing generalist with solid design skills and deep web expertise. The personal motto I've developed for what I do is "Helping outstanding companies stand out" but I'll soon have to change this to "Helping outstanding wineries stand out."