I was standing in the video production room at Sierra Pacific Power (now NV Energy) when President Bush delivered a televised address to the nation. Operation Desert Storm had begun.
It wasn’t hard to gauge the severity of the moment. Communication employees had gathered around a half-dozen monitors, each tuned to a different network, staring in slack-jawed disbelief. One of them gave me a heartfelt embrace between sobs, wiping her tears on my shoulder. She was afraid for me. I had graduated from the University of Nevada, Reno, only a few days earlier. My future could not have felt more uncertain.
No one knew how long the conflict would last or whether a draft might return. What we did know was that my contract—an extension of a coveted paid internship—would officially end in June. Any realistic chance of permanent employment had evaporated in the recession.
Later that day, my fiancé struck a deal with me. We would leave Reno for wherever fate took us. When her job offer in Las Vegas beat mine in San Francisco, we packed up and moved into a one-bedroom apartment on what was then the edge of town.
My college mentor was almost as disappointed as I was. He had hoped to place me in journalism, despite my growing interest in advertising. I wasn’t thrilled either. Returning to a city I only wanted to escape felt like a big step backward. Still, he handed me the names of five contacts to call once I settled in.
I called those five, then dozens more from the phone book. Eventually I landed temporary work at an advertising agency while keeping my old summer job at a paint store. I had a gift for matching colors on anything from scraps of stucco to fabric swatches. When the agency role proved even more temporary than expected, I struck a new deal with the store: 40 hours between Friday and Monday. That left Tuesday through Thursday free to launch a freelance writing business, toggling between magazine articles and copywriting for ad agencies.
My biggest risks were a nearly new Volkswagen Jetta bought off a Ford lot and a monochrome Mac Classic, bubble-jet printer, and stack of 3.5-inch floppies purchased on Apple credit. I set the workstation up on a folding card table in our tiny dining room and printed business cards on Office Max stock. In August 1991—35 years ago—Copywrite, Ink. opened for business at a time when nobody was hiring full-time writers, but everyone had small jobs to farm out.
Two years of steady magazine assignments and a well-timed six-month contract covering a maternity leave at Nevada Power finally gave me the confidence to leave the paint store behind. Once I committed full time, the firm incorporated three years later. It grew into one of the region’s most successful strategic communication and writing services companies. From that foundation came the ability to help launch advertising agencies, graphic design firms, publications, and other ventures from startup shops to major Las Vegas resorts.
Over the decades, the firm has worked on more than a thousand accounts — the City of Henderson, Fidelity Investments, McDonald’s, the U.S. Air Force, and Volkswagen among them. The work expanded to include creative direction and strategic consultation, earning more than two hundred awards from organizations such as the International Association of Business Communicators, American Advertising Federation, Public Relations Society of America, AIGA, and the Las Vegas Chamber of Commerce. Early recognition included IABC/Las Vegas Communicator of the Year, the Chamber’s Community Achievement Award, and Working in Communications Principal of the Year — all before I turned 35.
The visibility also opened doors. For twenty years, I taught writing, editing, and social media at UNLV. I directed communications for the Council of Multiple Listing Services, advised political campaigns, and coached travel and high school softball. I also served as a commissioner for the Nevada Commission for National and Community Service (AmeriCorps), and for many years now, the Las Vegas Parks and Recreation Advisory Commission, currently as chair. I also served on more than sixty boards and committees supporting nonprofits ranging from Amnesty International to the United Way of Southern Nevada.
Of course, all this is not to say there weren’t hard lessons to be learned. Clients default on credit. Stock payments become worthless. Families face crisis. Operating costs explode. And sometimes you still wonder whether those first feelings of uncertainty ever went away. If keyboards could talk, mine would assure you they never really do.
Thirty-five years later, my original monochrome Mac Classic still rests on the top shelf above my desk as a silent reminder. Copywrite, Ink. was never just a job. It was a bet that passion, persistence, and values could outlast recessions, wars, and the hard times that shuttered bigger names.
Looking back, it remains living proof that necessity truly is the mother of invention. Looking forward, it has become a leaner firm that works with select clients and a publishing division that will form part of a family legacy. I’m grateful for everyone who has been part of the story, and for everyone still to come, because the only words I refuse to write are “the end.”
