I had originally been hired fulltime by Cathy Collins of Collins Communications (an R&R Advertising alum) right out of college. The job lasted about two months before we parted ways, for reasons we joked about over the 20-plus years that followed. She had an obsessive-compulsive proclivity to raid my office on weekends to reorganize my desk because she didn’t like the way I filed things. She would place strawberry magnets in provocative spots on the naked men that sometimes decorated the office refrigerator. She would call me “Roach” for weeks after I accidentally sent her a memo with a “K” swapped for the “C” in Cathy. (I worked for a director named “Kathy” in college, and old habits die hard until you bury them.)
Still, despite the fireworks, I was working with a sharp-eyed agency owner with a respected name in Las Vegas. She had a gift for spotting talent, and a greater one for demanding excellence. This also meant that while we seldom disagreed on creative, we found plenty of other things to clash over, like the merit of tracking time in fifteen-minute intervals on a paper time sheet, or whether an effective media buy was measured by the number of people reached versus the number of times an ad aired, regardless of who was watching. The latter cost us a missed opportunity to buy two slots during every episode of Home Improvement on the cheap, just before it became a household name and the ad rates quadrupled overnight.
In retrospect, she admitted I was right. But it did me little good. She had two revelations before calling me into her office to tell me. I was destined to be a great copywriter with strong media buying skills, but she could afford neither a full-time copywriter nor a full-time media buyer. What she needed was another account executive, someone who was happy to be there. We both knew I wasn’t happy unless I was writing.
The beautiful irony is that the very day I resigned and cleaned out my desk, she offered me my first freelance job. She needed an advertisement for Canyon Gate Country Club, a guard-gated country club and high-end residential community in Las Vegas. (Years later, I would have lunch there inside the now-former home of legendary impressionist Rich Little, who still performs.) She set the rate at $25 per hour for three hours of work.
This job was the first of many. Cathy became a sometimes-steady, sometimes-sporadic client who would often joke about how well we worked together, provided we weren’t in the same office. These early projects gave me the breathing room to build my own company in those fragile first years. It didn’t hurt that Cathy had a reputation for precision, which gave me instant credibility in the field. It wasn’t long before I learned how to balance creative work with client service.
Even so, I never fully understood how much she truly appreciated me and my work until years later, when she asked me to help on a production job. By then, Cathy had been afflicted by systemic scleroderma. Despite the chronic pain and oxygen tank she had to haul everywhere, she kept her eye on the future.
Even as her body failed her, Cathy refused to give up. She was still strategizing campaigns, mentoring young creatives, and trying to set something up that would be her legacy. I learned this sitting in the edit bay of a post-production company. She confided that this new round of contract work had an ulterior motive. She was dying and wanted to make me a partner in her agency alongside a graphic designer who, while excellent at design, didn’t always present as well as an account executive, which was a skill set I had developed as my own company grew.
I was reluctant at first, given that my company was thriving, but my love for her eventually convinced me to say yes. Unfortunately, my commitment came too late. Cathy passed before any papers could be signed. The designer took over the agency instead, and as Cathy had predicted, it was forced to shutter a little more than a year later. Like many successful agencies that have blossomed and faded from the Las Vegas advertising community, her legacy lives on mostly in the lessons I carry forward.
Nowadays, we live in a world that treats connections like commodities, tally marks on social networks, the thinnest form of social proof in a highly connected but increasingly transactional era. Had Cathy and I met today, we would likely have blocked each other early on.
But we didn’t. We met in a time when the world felt smaller and people were willing to endure small hurts to build relationships that felt more like family. That’s what Cathy and I ultimately became: she cheered my successes, and I valued her sometimes harsh but always enduring guidance. We don’t often make time for that kind of depth anymore. Maybe we ought to. How else could I have been so influenced by someone whose life embodied resilience, precision, and loyalty?
Four takeaways from Cathy Collins
• Challenging relationships can be the most valuable. The people who push you, disagree with you, and refuse to let you coast are often the ones who help you grow the most as long as you’re willing to stick with it.
• Loyalty and appreciation matter more than convenience. Cathy kept coming back because she valued my work even though she didn’t care for the way I worked. This kind of enduring trust is rare and worth protecting.
• Small beginnings can shape everything that follows. A $75 freelance gig became the foundation that helped me survive the early years and build a lasting company. Never underestimate modest starts.
• Take the time to build real depth. In today’s fast, transactional world, it’s easy to move on at the first friction. Sometimes the better move is to endure the small hurts and invest in people who become more like family than clients.
Cathy taught me these things the hard way through with biting humor, conflict, and ultimately grace. I’m grateful for every day we spent together, something that would have been squandered with a different measure.
