Ken "Gecko" Sliwa

Worked my may up through various positions in the central office to join the executive team as the Community Relations Administrator, working for the agency director. Supported all the needs of the agency, including communication, partnerships, marketing, outreach and development projects across the state. Helped lead agency goals to create record revenue, visitation and the acquisition of the NRPA Gold Medal and CAPRA accreditation. Became the Senior Art Director in 2020, working to maintain the brand and expand creative advertising throughout the state and country to expand park visitation, currently 3 million per year, and revenue, currently 22 million per year..

Work with in-house, corporate marketing departments, to support their business.Provide turn-key solutions to clients, allowing them to maintain project schedules, productivity levels and the creation of high quality products for their advertising operations and clients.

Working to support the programs and events, promoting the 30 beautiful State Parks has been an exciting opportunity. Here, I create a variety of graphic design and website projects, serving as the Web Master, back-up Graphic Designer, Photographer and Videographer for the Parks, traveling around the state to capture the beauty of Arizona’s State Parks to share with the world. In my first seven months here, I’ve worked to grow our website traffic by 2,000 visitors per month, 8,000 per month total, and have increased our Facebook community by more than 7,000 members, to more than 35,000. I perform more than 100 updates, postings and content refreshes on more than 40 State websites per week and create original graphic design content for print ads. I’m also responsible for capturing original photography and video content to promote events and programs throughout the parks. My video posts, supporting Park events, have received more than 170,000 views, and my photo posts have been “Liked” more than 250,000 times.
I am also experimenting with Aerial Video, using a RC drone to capture unique photo & video footage of the parks to share online.

Working with staff, students and the public to support the message and goals of 31 K-12 public schools in the Scottsdale school district. Promote the advantages of education within the community of Scottsdale, highlighting scholastic, athletic, student and faculty achievements through all available advertising mediums.

Create original creative materials to promote enrollment, supporting staff, faculty and students. Serve as a liaison with school departments and external vendors to support the graphic design, web and promotional needs of SCC.

Worked with in-house marketing department to support their business.Provided turn-key solutions to allow them to maintain project schedules, productivity levels and the creation of high quality products for their advertising operations and clients.

Worked hands-on with staff, senior management, clients & vendors to create and support advertising projects, products and daily advertising operations. Hired, managed & trained 6 supervisors, and was responsible for 75 designers. Managed quality control, advertising projects, technology, deadlines and production of over 100 annual magazines, newspaper publications and products.

Involved in all areas of client projects including: page layout, graphics/logo creation, high resolution 4/C & B&W scanning, color correction, photo retouching, electronic trapping/imposition of final film & trouble shooting problems in the production workflow.

Learned workflow of both the Scanning & Prep Departments. Built pages on Macs for later translation to Scitex Prismax Workstations for the output of final film or 3M Digital Matchprints. Color corrected & retouched photos for national publications including, Frederick's of Hollywood, Victoria's Secret & Bloomingdale's. Worked heavily in Photoshop & Scitex Blaze software to incorporate final images into products, prior to running final film/plates for printing.

Worked with clients and Prep Dept. to expand their knowledge of the capabilities of our facility. Transferred electronic files to Crossfield Assembler stations. Involved in the file archival/management of client jobs, maintained electronic workflow. Scanned and retouched digital images for Arizona Highway magazine & ran final pages to film for off-site printing. Trained new staff members and provided national technical support for eight other prepress facilities.