Meet the HR Marketer Staff: Kevin Grossman
Kevin joined Fisher Vista in July 2003 to maintain HR Marketer’s extensive database of more than 400 human resources-related events in North America. It’s a deceivingly simple task – he monitors dates, locations, event categories from recruiting to benefits, exhibiting opportunities, sponsorship opportunities, speaking opportunities, key event personnel and their contact information, hotel information and more. If that’s not enough, he keeps in daily contact with event organizers to ensure that the database listings remain current and accurate.
Since his arrival, Kevin’s role has steadily expanded into strategic marketing and sales – he helps plan and implement HR Marketer promotional campaigns, writes and edits marketing copy, and follows up with potential sales leads.
“I’m so excited about HR Marketer's phenomenal growth during its first year,” explains Kevin, “which validates the need for our unique marketing and public relations service in the human capital industry. It's an exciting product that saves human resources marketing and PR professionals an inordinate amount of time and resources . . . Effectively using marketing resources is critical in today's highly-competitive industry, and I’m enjoying helping our members do just that.”
Fisher Vista is the perfect home for Kevin’s experience and talents. He holds more than 12 years of marketing communications experience in recruiting and staffing, high-tech, and higher education. Most recently he served as Director of Marketing Communications and Research at Falcon Strategic Group, a human capital management consulting firm. Prior to that he was Marketing and PR Director for Tapestry.Net, an online recruiting services company. Kevin also worked as an account manager and supervisor for Harding Marketing Communications, and on good days he can remember all the way back to his career’s beginnings in San Jose State University, where he worked in fundraising and alumni relations.
But that’s just scratching the surface for a fan of reading and writing, with several published works of poetry and short fiction, and a novel in progress. On October 11 he married his “soul mate,” Amy Dahlen, who he’d first met on the beach that same day back in 1997. Sadly, he and Amy also recently had to say good-bye to Joshua, Kevin’s long-time pet and canine friend who first “adopted” Kevin 10 years ago.
Kevin Grossman’s Little-Known Fact-File: first image
First job, and how well it paid:
My first job was delivering my hometown newspaper. I was 12 years old. I don’t remember how much I got paid, but I do remember Saturdays were my favorite delivery day. After waking at the ungodly hour of 4 a.m., riding my bike to the house where the neighborhood papers were dropped off, folding and banding the papers for my route and delivering them, I’d stop at Royal Donut for hot blueberry donuts and a coke. That was the greatest perk of all!
Who inspired you growing up:
First of all, my mother, who encouraged me to learn and explore. She tirelessly read to me as a child and got me “hooked” on books. There have been a wide range of writers and poets who inspired me growing up (and still do) – Dr. Suess, J.R.R. Tolkien, Stephen R. Donaldson, Stephen King, Shel Silverstein, Lewis Carroll, William Butler Yeats, Edgar Lee Masters, Robert Frost, Robert Graves, Margaret Atwood, Denise Levertov, Robert Bly, Jack Kerouac, Ernest Hemingway, Neil Peart . . . and the list goes on and on and on.
The job you'd be doing if you hadn't picked HR:
I’d continue freelance writing and copyediting . . . and, considering how the economy was going a few months ago, starving to death.
Place you'd most like to visit:
The Yukon Territory in the summer to see the midnight sun.
Favorite movie/TV show:
Star Wars.
Favorite author/musical artist:
Rush.
TV game show you'd most likely win the jackpot on:
The Amazing Race (my wife and I love the show and love to travel).
Least-known fact about you:
My birth name is Kevin Stone, but that’s another story for another time . . .