Paul Crawford, President/Creative Director
After a few years being a sub-par bass guitar player in a sub-par heavy metal band, Paul decided that advertising might be a better career choice. Since then, he’s logged 14 years of advertising, design and brand-building experience working at agencies in Boston, Atlanta and Birmingham. He’s done work for brands such as Royal Caribbean Cruise Lines, The Hartford, U.S. Postal Service, ING, CNN, Turner Classic Movies, Amsouth Bank, Protective Life, KinderCare Learning Centers, Mastercraft Boats, Vanderbilt Medical Center and Prevent Child Abuse Georgia.
Paul has won just about every award given for advertising and design including The One Show, Communication Arts, Archive, Effies, The New York Festivals, Print Regional Design, MPA Kelly Awards, Hatch Awards, London International Advertising Show, US Ad Review and local, regional and national ADDYs. He has also had his work reviewed by the The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal.
In 2005 and 2006, the Birmingham Advertising Federation named Paul both Creative Director and Art Director of the Year. He was again named Art Director of the Year in 2008.
Paul and his wife Emily have two children, Ian (9) and Natalie (6). When he’s not at Scout or chasing the kids around, you can find him at the CrossFit facility trying to shave a few seconds off his time.
Ryan Gernenz, Associate Creative Director
Ryan grew up playing baseball and launching his bike off of homemade ramps in the suburbs of Chicago. After relocating to the south, he graduated from Auburn University at Montgomery with a BA in design. His first call to arms was with Saks, Inc as a package designer where he developed packaging for all Saks’ store brands, including the launch of Jane Seymour’s exclusive product line. From there, he worked at ad agencies in Birmingham on national brands like Subway, Tiffin Motorhomes and Vanderbilt Medical Center. Ryan has been awarded with local, regional and national Addy’s and had his work featured in Graphis International Journal and Lurzer’s International Archive For Outstanding Advertising.
What makes Ryan happy the most in life is his beautiful and very understanding wife, his daughter and the fact that he has a baby boy on the way. Other things he enjoys is being tormented at 5:30 every morning by CrossFit and trying to explain to his 3-year-old daughter why she can’t sell their dog in a yard sale.
Mandy Lamb Meredith, Design Director
Mandy joined Scout from SlaughterGroup, where she worked on brands such as Regions Bank, JW Marriott, Alys Beach, Children’s Hospital, Cracker Barrel, Tandus, Royal Cup Coffee, and Southern Progress. She has tackled design challenges in a multitude of media, including: identity design, print, signage, interactive, displays, corporate attire, credit cards, and china (yes, plates, cups, etc.). Her work has been featured in AR100, Graphis Letterhead Annual, and she received the 2008 Domtar Paper Envy Award.
Mandy was a William E. Brock Scholar at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, where she graduated summa cum laude with a BFA in Graphic Design. She lives in Birmingham with her husband Zach and a menagerie. When not designing, she can usually be found training for triathlons and marathons, plotting her next adventure trip, or riding on the back of Zach’s Vespa. She is also a certified animal-assisted therapist with her cat Sully, who visits local hospitals and nursing homes with Birmingham-based charity, Hand-In-Paw. She also serves on Hand-In-Paw’s Board of Directors.
Sara Cannon, Designer/Interactive
Sara absolutely loves all things interactive and web. She is deeply committed to excellence in using the latest web technology, user experience, with a focus on design. She loves to push the boundaries on web typography and see good ideas come to life. She is also an avid WordPress user and loves making sites run on the WordPress platform, while still making them look like a million bucks. Her web expertise includes: Flash, xml, html, php, and MySQL.
Sara also loves working on different print and logo projects with the rest of the Scout team. What really makes her happy is taking a newly Scout-developed brand to the Internet as it ties in the whole concept into an online presence.
Sara came to Scout in October of 2007. Originally from outside of Boston, Massachusetts, she came to the south and graduated with a BS from Samford University in Graphic Design. She is a member of the Internet Society of Alabama (IPSA), and is a founding member of the Birmingham Art Collective.
Sara has spoke at an IPSA Meeting on “Interactive Branding and Typography Tips” and as well at WordCamp Brimingham on “WordPress and Your Brand,” and more recently at WordCamp Atlanta on “WordPress and Your Brand 2010.”
In her spare time, (if she has any), Sara loves to make art and show with other community artists and write in her art & design blog sara-cannon.com.
Carly Jayne Rullman, Account Coordinator
When you call Scout, you will likely hear the welcoming voice of our account coordinator, Carly.
Like many of us, Carly comes from outside Alabama. She grew up in Charlottesville, Virginia playing lacrosse and performing. She graduated from the University of Alabama with a degree in Public Relations, though her knowledge goes beyond that particular field (you should hear her speak Spanish!)
Before joining us at Scout, Carly was a writer/editor for Platform Online Magazine and Account Executive for The Crimson White newspaper in Tuscaloosa. She also helped build the communications department at Walnut Hill School in Natick, Mass. and did marketing for UAB athletics.
Carly is an active member of Birmingham Rotaract where she is involved in many service projects. And because lacrosse is not nearly what it is up ‘north,’ she devotes much of her free time to learning Birmingham, reading and blogging on Ad Age, as well as looking for any opportunities to continue performing (karaoke will do for now.)
Carly truly enjoys the day-to-day client service and is involved in almost every project at Scout. Anything a client needs, she will figure out how to take care of it. Just give us a call—you’ll know her voice when you hear it.