Meet Our Experts

Michelle Lanter Smith — Partner, Marketing Strategist

What’s her passion?
Michelle loves marketing. She has a proven talent in developing marketing strategy and integrated marketing communication plans. She received the Chicago Association of Direct Marketing's Tempo Award for a one-to-one e-marketing program she developed and managed at the IBM Corporation. Michelle has guest-lectured at Northwestern University’s Integrated Marketing Communication Seminars and published articles on brand marketing and consensual database marketing.

Where’s she been?
Michelle enjoyed a successful marketing career at IBM for 11 years, driving direct marketing and electronic campaigns to small to mid-size business. Prior to starting Hi-Impact, Michelle was the President of a non-profit organization serving local women and children in need. Michelle was able to establish the organization as the dominant, most active women’s organization in Lake County, growing the membership base by 41% and increasing fundraising revenues by 100%.

Michelle received her Bachelors of Science in Marketing and Finance at Marquette University and her Masters of Management from the J.L. Kellogg Graduate School of Management at Northwestern University.

What does she do for fun?
Michelle and her husband Paul have three children, ages 11 and under. If it’s not baseball, basketball, or piano lessons taking up her time, it’s homework and school projects. Michelle gets her quiet time while caring for her perennials in one of her many flower beds. She also enjoys the piano as she has taught young beginners for over five years. Michelle is active on the Board of Directors for the Hawthorn Woods Women’s Club.

Roula Crews —Partner, Sales Professional

What’s her passion?
Selling is what Roula knows and what she does best. Her brightest moments are when she can satisfy a client’s needs by the product or service she has to offer. Roula has a highly-focused approach and is very service oriented. When it comes to selling, Roula’s top priority is making sure that the product or service is a good fit for the prospect. She has achieved multiple awards naming her a top sales representative. In addition to sales management and sales training roles, Roula successfully ran her own staffing business serving mid-size to large customers. She is now revisiting her entrepreneurial passion with her partnership in Hi-Impact Marketing & Sales.

Where’s she been?
Roula has been a sales professional for the past fifteen years with a proven record of increasing her clients’ revenue. She began her career in the staffing industry, and was regularly recruited by firms aspiring for the sales results that she can deliver. Roula spent most of her career working for two well-known staffing agencies and then negotiated contracts with clients to service them directly through her own company. She has also had a successful career in the manufacturing industry, growing sales revenue for various clients serving manufacturers. During the last couple of years, Roula was also a key player in raising $100,000 in donations and in-kind gifts for a not-for-profit organization serving women and children in need.

Roula has enhanced her sales acumen by successfully completing a Selling Dynamics Course and Dale Carnegie Sales training course.

What does she do for fun?
Roula and her husband Ron have three children, ages 17 and under. They have a passion for the great outdoors and enjoy taking camping trips in their RV. This active family loves sports, especially boating and water sports. Roula is also active with the Hawthorn Woods Women’s Club, a local charity, in supporting their mission of helping women and children in Lake County, IL.

Teri Latter– Marketing Project Manager

What’s her passion?
On time, on spec, on budget – that’s Teri’s motto when she’s managing a project. Teri is a highly-organized, detail-oriented person who loves working with teams to get the job done efficiently…and done right! Her strong communication skills make her an effective team leader and enable her to interact with all levels of management. Teri loves taking a project from inception to completion while meeting or exceeding the client’s expectations.

Where’s she been?
Teri spent 28 years at AT&T, working primarily as a product manager and product developer. She led the team that created Ameritech Privacy Manager, a first-in-the-world call management service for which she holds several patents and received numerous awards. She also worked as marketing coordinator in the consumer marketing organization, interfacing with the advertising agencies, direct mail houses, outbound and inbound call centers and service centers to assure flawless implementation of marketing campaigns. She also managed all post-launch tracking. She has a B.A. from Lake Forest College and completed the Executive Development Program at the Kellogg Graduate School of Management at Northwestern University.

What does she do for fun?
Teri and her husband, Paul, have three sons in their 20’s. After years of going from one school or sporting event to another, Teri now prefers more relaxing past times like needlework, crossword puzzles and reading. In an effort to explore her more creative side, she recently took up oil painting. Since her retirement from the corporate world 5 years ago, Teri has given her time to her church, leading the lector ministry, chairing the Long Range Planning Team and coordinating the annual women’s retreat. She also completed the two-year Lay Formation Program at St. Mary of the Lake University in Mundelein.

Dawn Bremer – Sales Professional

What’s her passion?
Dawn loves to "get things done!" She is an energetic, hard workingwoman who likes to get into the "meat" of things. She also has the analytical skills to diagnose problems and devise viable solutions. Her ability to remain unflustered during frenzied periods proves her ability to work well under pressure.

Where’s she been?
Dawn is the former CEO of the Dachman Centers for Pain Therapy. During her 9-year tenure, she helped open four additional offices. Dawn was in charge of all business activities in the office, made all decisions as to infrastructure, IT, personnel, billing, coding and insurance issues. She was the principal contact with insurance provider relations and staff. Prior to the Dachman Center, she was at Accelerated Receivables Management where she lowered AR by over 52% the first year. Dawn attended Illinois State University.

What does she do for fun?
Dawn and her husband have two children. When she is not working, she enjoys helping her husband with his business and playing with her kids. Dawn loves to do fundraising and has been instrumental in raising funds for the YMCA and the Hawthorn Woods Women’s Club.

Dr. Tamara Block –Research Analyst and Strategist

What’s her passion?
Having a strong background in marketing and advertising, Tamara excels at matching the research tool to the client’s marketing or communication needs. She is equally at ease with either quantitative or qualitative research methods, with both traditional and advanced multivariate analytical tools, which allows her the flexibility to apply whichever is appropriate to extract the most that research data has to offer. She loves partnering with a client and showing them what research can do to solve their business problems.

Where’s she been?
Tamara has been a principal of Block Research, Inc., a research consulting business she and her husband have built, since leaving academia over 15 years ago. She has had primary responsibility for a variety of clients in very different sectors, including IBM (business-to-business needs analysis and segmentation modeling), Levy Restaurants (consumer satisfaction surveying), and the American Society of Safety Engineers (association membership program development).

Tamara taught graduate-level research methods, sales promotion, and integrated campaigns courses for eight years as a faculty member in the Integrated Marketing Communications Program of the Medill School at Northwestern University. She began her career as an instructor in the Advertising Department at Michigan State University, where she received an M.A. and B.A. in Advertising and her Ph.D. in Mass Media.

Tamara is co-author of Business-to-Business Market Research (Irwin Professional, 1995) and editor of two books, Sales Promotion Handbook and The Only Sales Promotion Techniques You’ll Ever Need, (Dartnell, 1996). She has been published in several academic journals on topics related to advertising and promotion effects.

What does she do for fun?
Working from home for the past 15 years has allowed Tamara the flexibility to raise her two children, ages 10 and 15, along with being an involved step mom to four now-grown children. She finds important musical outlets as a pianist, bell ringer, and choir soprano/soloist in her church. Tamara has also chaired her church’s annual rummage sale, and largest fundraiser, for the past six years. An avid gardener herself, Tamara is active in the Highland Park Garden Guild as VP and Program Chair. Training their new golden retriever puppy currently rounds out her busy life.

Chris Geimer—Graphic Designer

What's her passion?
Chris’s passion is great design that solves communication problems. Looking good isn't enough. . .visual presentation of a message, image or information should enhance the marketing approach with consistency. Chris enjoys learning about clients and their design needs and requirements, then offering successful, well-designed solutions customized to those specific needs.

Where's she been?
Chris is a graphic designer with extensive background in successful print communications ranging from logo and identity programs to advertising and collateral. Her expertise includes involvement from initial concept generation through delivery of the final piece. Her background includes working at several design firms and advertising agencies in the Chicago area, as well as over 15 years with her own company working directly with communications firms, small businesses and large manufacturers. Each project gets high quality design attention, while working within designated budgets and deadlines. Chris has a B.A. degree in Graphic Design from the Fine Arts College at the University of Illinois, Champaign.

What else does she do?
Locally, Chris is the current past president of the Women In Networking business group and is currently a board member of the local Chamber of Commerce.

Barbara Payne – Writer

What’s her passion?
Barbara is passionately dedicated to helping clients find their “True Voice.” She crafts messages in powerful, clear language that reveals meaning at the deepest levels. Messages must reach clients, constituents, employees, prospects and potential donors so that they truly understand what the organization can do for them—and feel impelled to take action! Combining this passion with her exceptional ability to analyze the most complex or highly technical information makes her an expert at presenting even the most difficult concepts, requests, and solutions in ways that elicit desired reactions.

Where’s she been?
Having founded her own business in 2001, Barbara’s been helping companies of all sizes—from Fortune 250 companies like Eaton Corporation and Microsoft and major nonprofits such as The Cleveland Clinic and Lerner Research Institute, to smaller companies and professional consulting firms in both B-to-B and B-to-C in areas such as high technology manufacturing and software, financial strategic consulting, golf instruction, photography and wealth management. As a former Marketing Communications Manager for the international leader in software for the logistics/trucking industries, TWM Systems, Inc., she spent 6 years helping the company become an early leader in using the Internet for sales leads generation, managing and executing direct mail operations, and overseeing the writing, editing and publication of tools such as monthly and quarterly newsletters and a full-color, glossy 44-page annual magazine that built powerful customer loyalty and helped turn prospects into already-informed buyers.

What else does she do?
Barbara is an active member of NAWBO—the National Association of Women Business Owners, COSE—the Greater Cleveland Partnership’s Council of Smaller Enterprises, and SWWAN—the Single Working Women’s Affiliate Network. She was an early leader in the business blogging phenomenon and publishes two professional blogs: www.biomednews.org and www.blogforbusiness.com.

Rebecca Witek—Graphic Designer

What’s her passion?
Rebecca is passionate about creating print and web design that makes her clients proud of their look and gets results. She beams like a proud parent when a newly-launched website such as www.pureairemonitoring.com has brought in a quarter of a million dollars in sales directly from sales leads generated by the website just in the first half of the year after launching. She loves to build relationships with her clients and help to continue strengthening their look and branding identity.

Where’s she been?
Rebecca's received her BFA from Maryland Institute, College of Art, majoring in design and graduating with honors (Cum Laude). She started her career on the east coast freelancing for a minority owned firm that handled the NAACP Convention and a non-profit environmental publishing firm. She moved back to her hometown in the Chicagoland Area where she continued to freelance for companies such as Paterno Wines International. In 2004, Rebecca became the principal designer at PowerUser Incorporated.

What does she do for fun?
Rebecca has been Vice President for the North Shore Professional Women's Assoc. for the past 2 years. Rebecca takes great pride in her fine arts background and continues to paint in her spare time. She has a desire to help newly-graduated graphic designers develop their business skills and she has done so by creating an online resource called www.youngdesignersguide.com. She is also an avid billiards player.

Eugene Miñon—Web Developer