Peter Gow

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Peter Gow is a retired educator who was privileged to write, present, and consult on many areas of independent school programming and operation. In his many-decades career, he taught, coached, and advised students at four independent schools and served as academic dean and director of college counseling at Beaver Country Day School (MA). He was a founder and later executive director of the Independent Curriculum Group, a consortium of schools working to develop mission-based advanced courses, where he learned the value for schools of being “part of the conversation.”

Barbara Egan

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Chief Strategist, Head StoryScape

With over three decades of experience across both large agencies and boutique firms, Barbara has collaborated with an array of clients spanning various industries. Before dedicating the last nine years to education marketing, her most fulfilling role had been working with mission-driven organizations, serving as Global Director of Marketing for 1% for the Planet, a non-profit founded by Patagonia. Aligning what’s personal with professional purpose set the stage for where she is today. As an alum of Loomis Chaffee and Rumsey Hall, Barbara’s career has come full circle. At StoryScape, we believe that meaningful work happens when it truly resonates.

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Shawn Caple

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Cinematographer, Director, Editor. From Start to Film

I've been crafting visual stories as a dedicated videographer since 2006. With a keen eye for authenticity and a commitment to clean compositions, I bring narratives into focus with a camera and a lens. My approach to each project is enthusiasm and dedication, ensuring that every frame tells a compelling story. Whether documenting life's moments, exploring new perspectives, or bringing ideas to fruition, I'm dedicated to the pursuit of visual excellence.

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Rebecca Drobis

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Rebecca Drobis

Rebecca Drobis is passionate about capturing compelling, high-impact images of the learning environment. For over 13 years, she has worked with independent schools, colleges, universities and education publications across the United States. Rebecca’s training as a photojournalist instilled in her a keen sense of observation and the ability to capture impactful, story-telling moments. Rebecca prides herself on being a proactive, enthusiastic and flexible team player. She engages with her clients to understand their marketing goals and unique culture so that she can translate that to a library of photographs that are versatile, strategic and unique. Throughout the Covid-19 crisis, Rebecca has partnered with schools to capture the tremendous effort educators, administrators, students and staff have made to keep learning on track.

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Tom Kates

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Tom Kates

With over 20 years of experience, Tom Kates brings a unique eye to photographing the world of education. He uses his superb technical skills honed with years of large-scale commercial shoots, combined with his deep sense of joy in seeing young people both determined and engaged. Tom has worked throughout the country for educational institutions. His style has a warmth that can often be seen both in the expressions he captures and in the lighting uses to make his subjects come to life. Whether it be a classroom or a rushing river, Tom believes that there is a way to show a subject’s humanity and spirit.

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Billy Howard

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Billy Howard

Billy Howard is a photographer and writer based in Atlanta, Georgia. He has authored and co-authored four school history books in addition to producing documentary photography books and photo exhibits on public and global health issues. His book Epitaphs for the Living: Words and Images in the Time of AIDS, was the first full-length photo documentary book on the AIDS pandemic. Work from that book is archived in the Stuart A. Rose Manuscripts and Rare Book Library at Emory University as well as in the collections of The Library of Congress Photography Collection, and the High Museum of Art. He was named a CASE Photographer of the Year, and was a 2011–2012 Rosalynn Carter Fellow in Mental Health Journalism. Howard has been interviewed about his work on CBS This Morning, Good Morning America, NPR, and other local, regional, and national news programs. He has traveled the world photographing and writing about schools for their marketing, and fund raising campaigns for more than twenty-five years.

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Tara Claeys

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Tara Claeys

Tara Claeys began her career in advertising and marketing in the early 1990’s. After her first child was born, she supplemented her full-time job as Mom with illustration and stationery design for clients around the world. Her extensive marketing background and understanding of business quickly became her focus. Founded in 2010, Design TLC, specializes in websites and digital marketing for small schools, enrichment programs, camps and education-focused nonprofits.

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Michael Branscom

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Michael Branscom

Michael Branscom specializes in real life storytelling through still photography and video for independent schools. Curiosity, enthusiasm for creative collaboration, and an unobtrusive approach, allow him to convey what makes people and their institutions unique and show their full potential. After studying photojournalism at the University of Minnesota, he returned to the Philadelphia area, which has served as home base for the last 24 years.

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Be sure to view Michael’s portfolio on the InspirED Photographer and Filmmaker Guide.

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Billy Howard & Laurie Shock

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Billy Howard & Laurie Shock

Billy Howard is a photographer and writer based in Atlanta, Georgia. He has authored and co-authored four school history books in addition to producing documentary photography books and photo exhibits on public and global health issues. His book Epitaphs for the Living: Words and Images in the Time of AIDS, was the first full-length photo documentary book on the AIDS pandemic. Work from that book is archived in the Stuart A. Rose Manuscripts and Rare Book Library at Emory University as well as in the collections of The Library of Congress Photography Collection, and the High Museum of Art. He was named a CASE Photographer of the Year, and was a 2011–2012 Rosalynn Carter Fellow in Mental Health Journalism. Howard has been interviewed about his work on CBS This Morning, Good Morning America, NPR, and other local, regional, and national news programs. He has traveled the world photographing and writing about schools for their marketing, and fund raising campaigns for more than twenty-five years.

Laurie Shock has designed more than two hundred books, including A Century of Women with Turner Broadcasting, and Isaac Asimov’s Library of the Universe. She has coauthored three school history books and is the author of Camp Merrie-Woode: One Hundred Years of Following the Gleam, the history of an iconic girls camp in Sapphire Valley, North Carolina that helped shape the camp movement within the United States.

She has produced and designed fine-art and non-fiction coffee-table books for international book publisher Rizolli and Fall Line Press, an Atlanta publishing house specializing in documentary and fine-art photography as well as producing under her own imprint, Shock Design Books.

She has collaborated with the American Cancer Society, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the Carter Center to produce documentary books on children with cancer, global health, and the eradication of guinea worm disease in Africa.

Shock’s books have won three Grand Gold CASE District III Awards in the categories of writing, design and photography; three Silver IPPY awards for book design; a Benjamin Franklin Gold award for cover design; four Benjamin Franklin Silver awards for book design; and a Bronze CASE Circle of Excellence Award in book design among other awards and honors.

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Dr. Arnaud Prevot

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Private School Marketing Specialist

Coming from a family of teachers, education has always been with me. I After high school, where I earned the French national degree called the baccalauréat, I attended the University of Dallas (U.D.) in Irving, TX. 

I graduated at 20 with a Bachelor of Arts (B.A.), and went on the College of Business and their Graduate School of Management where I began my studies in business. I obtained my Master of Business Administration (M.B.A), and for a final project, a group of us worked on creating a private Catholic school, attached to a parish in Coppell, TX. 

This was where I first associated the themes of business, marketing and the running of private and independent schools. 

After earning my M.Mgt. (where a team of us helped a fledgling online company), I accepted a position to teach in Washington State. I was hired as a language and business teacher at Forest Ridge School in Bellevue, WA. During that time, two peer-reviewed academic papers of mine were published in the Consortium Journal of Hospitality and Tourism.

When I started at Forest Ridge, I also began my doctoral studies at Argosy University in Seattle , which took me 5 years to finish. I studied under Dr. L. Charles Miller, a Yale educated economist. My dissertation, entitled Market Positioning of Twelve Urban and Suburban Independent Schools in Washington State, was well received. My academic interests focus on using the tools of the business to add efficiency to private schools. 

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Liza Fisher Norman

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Liza Fisher Norman

Master Electrician, InspirED School Marketers

Master Electrician isn’t just a fun title for me. It’s how I feel about sparking school marketers to do their best work, connecting them to one another, and helping to make their jobs easier. After working with close to 100 schools in the firm I founded — Turnaround Marketing Communications — I realized that school marketers needed a place where they could find brilliant ideas and brain food and feel supported. InspirED School Marketers was born in 2013 to fill that void, and with the help of my fabulous Best Boy, Rob, we are on a quest to make InspirED a resource you can't live without.

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Rob Norman

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Rob Norman

Best Boy, InspirED School Marketers

Rob has 25 years of independent school marketing experience as principal of Turnaround Marketing Communications, a branding and marketing firm specializing in independent schools. Rob shares his experience on InspirED School Marketers by blogging, editing the Daily Jolt, and by podcasting with fascinating independent school movers and shakers. As InspirED's Best Boy — a term borrowed from theater, Rob's longtime passion — Rob loves to be out and about, meeting with school marketers, learning their needs, and helping them overcome challenges. Be sure to ask Rob about his golf game.

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