Talent is nothing without teamwork. And real teams are built on mutual professional respect — the kind of respect that takes years of collaboration and dozens of campaigns to earn. The shortest tenure of any core member of our team is eight years, so performing in sync is second nature to us. At the heart of our culture is proven talent, utter competence and an absolute trust in each other that can only be built by shared experience under pressure. We are each other’s toughest critics and greatest fans. We genuinely inspire one another.

Tom Puckett
Creative Principal

Tom is a gifted marketing strategist known for his ability to discover and illuminate the fruitful intersection where creativity meets purpose. He has demonstrated time and again that expressing the client’s true, meaningful edge is the key to effective creativity. Once a strategic target is painted, the creative team can flourish within a productive, focused zone and develop the emotional triggers that make a campaign work.

Above all else, Tom relishes his role as a coach and mentor. No agency can be truly great without an accomplished master of the craft at the helm setting a consistent example and living up to the agency’s belief set day in and day out. He takes tremendous pride in the professional accomplishments of his charges — and he knows the difference between taking pride and taking credit. He points out that "every single one of us already had talent, intelligence and character when they walked through the door. Pretty easy to teach people like that to do work like this."

And there is a living example of one of the agency’s core brand tenets: People who are exceptionally good at something make it look easy.

Melissa Landsman Puckett
Media Principal

Melissa is the master of all operating systems at Thomas Puckett. She began her career in advertising and marketing 15 years ago, and her experience working in virtually every department of the agency has honed her skills as a stellar project manager. Her impeccable attention to detail enables her to effectively manage the continuous onslaught of minutiae, yet she never loses sight of the big picture. Her understanding of the relationship between the two is what makes her an asset to both the agency and its clients.

Melissa has managed the agency’s media function for the past twelve years. She has overseen media strategy and placement for clients in a variety of industry sectors, including travel and hospitality, gaming, and real estate. One of her great strengths is managing multi-market spot advertising campaigns. Her extensive experience with non-profit media campaigns has also paid off for all of our clients as she knows how best to leverage value-added media into a finite budget for the most efficient return on investment.

Melissa has a very interactive role within the agency, with the clients, and also with media partners. Her positive attitude makes her a joy to work with and her experience, robust work ethic and dedication mean once something is placed in her hands, you can consider it handled.

Al Hart
Creative Partner

Al has worked with Tom for nine years, and Tom will be the first to tell you Al has taught him at least as much as he has imparted to Al. Having two standout creative directors with complementary skills gives the agency an edge that is hugely beneficial to clients. Their collaboration on Mountain’s Edge, for example, yielded national-caliber television commercials at a fraction of the anticipated cost.

Al is a master of the creative crafts, tech savvy and a superb copywriter, but what truly sets him apart is his intense attention to detail and his stellar project management skills. The man could build clocks – after inventing all the little pieces that make them tick.

The list of resorts and casinos in Las Vegas that Al hasn’t worked on would be shorter than the list of those he has. Al knows hospitality and gaming inside out, and is the agency’s go-to counsel when it comes to developing marketing campaigns that have a coherent, effective edge.

Richard Padilla
Creative Partner

Richard and Tom Puckett have been working together as a copywriter/art director team since 1983. They make each other laugh so hard they sometimes go home with face cramps. Still.

Richard is one of the most gifted graphic designers on the planet and one of the kindest, most principled people you’ll ever meet. He designed our brand graphics, of course, including the web site you’re on right now. You’ll also see his work atop the Monte Carlo Casino, at the Rio Casino Resort, and on every Nevada State Bank. He designed logos for the Nevada Development Authority, Focus Property Group, and, most recently, the Discovery Children’s Museum in Las Vegas.

Richard is also an acclaimed painter and a graduate of the renowned College of Fine Arts at the University of New Mexico.

Terry Puckett
Managing Partner, Minneapolis

Terry’s 24 years of marketing communications experience includes account management, communications strategy, package design, print management and creative direction. Much of his career has been in account services with major advertising agencies with offices in Minneapolis.

His client experience includes 3M, Polaris, Harley Davidson, Neostar Retail Group (Gamestop), Weyerhaeuser, Best Buy, Cargill, JD Edwards (Advanced Logistics Consulting), the Minnesota Twins, Hannon Armstrong, Energyworks, Wartsila and many more.

Terry’s passionate commitment to this profession drives results for his clients. His mission is to create collaborative and trusting client relationships for the agency, but he is a bright and clever man we often pull into creative discussions because there’s no such thing as too much fun.

Rob Szymanski
Creative Partner

Rob is the new kid on the team, having worked with us for just eight years. Of course, as you might expect, he is also our resident whiz when it comes to technical proficiency in art direction. Yes, he’s a fine designer, but we all marvel at his ability to make machines look like they care about the work that comes out of them. It’s a gift.

His masterful guidance of the Mountain’s Edge and Providence brand graphics are in themselves testament to his art direction skills. And because being creative is in itself never enough in this business, Rob is especially dear to our team because of his absolute, unwavering dependability. The man is incapable of slacking.

Supporting Cast
You meet a lot of incredible people in 26 years, and we’ve built a network of professionals we can call in as needed to solve specific marketing challenges. We are fortunate to enjoy active relationships with public relations professionals, television production companies, directors, producers, printers, specialized designers, web developers, online marketing specialists, technical writers, illustrators and more. What they all have in common is experience, including proven reliability with us.

A Word on Awards
We’ve won hundreds over the years, most of them back when we were getting started and wanted to establish our credentials. Now we only enter awards competitions at the request of our clients. We do encourage you to enter award competitions for your industry. If you want to enter work for awards we’ll happily prepare everything for your entries. And if the work wins, it’s a win for your company. It’s not about the ad agency. Trophies will be delivered to your office, where they rightfully belong. After all, you paid for everything.

Steve Landsman
Managing Partner, Baltimore

Steve’s 30 plus years of sales, marketing, and management experience include direct sales, large account management, sales management, market strategy development, and profit & loss responsibility. His sweet spot has been building sales and marketing groups that drive dramatic revenue and profit growth. For the regional division of a full-scale IT services company, he increased revenues from $2M to $12M in 3 years. For the same company, he later grew and managed its largest national account, which billed $20M annually. As a sales and sales/marketing management executive for a custom software development firm, he grew revenue from $1.5M to $50M in 7 years and led the definition and messaging of its market differentiation. For both companies, he helped engineer next-stage growth transitions including acquisition by an international market leader and IPO preparation.

His client experience includes IBM, National Association of Securities Dealers (NASD), T. Rowe Price, Bell Atlantic (now Verizon), Sallie Mae, Legg Mason, USF&G, Maryland Casualty, Blue Cross Blue Shield of Maryland, and many more.

Steve’s business success is the product of forging strong, lasting personal relationships with his clients and colleagues while finding a way to help everyone cross the finish line.

Andrew Hershberger
Managing Partner, Colorado

Andrew has over 19 years of experience in design and brand development. He spent thirteen years in Las Vegas where Graphic Design, USA recognized him as one of “50 Designers to Watch”. Andrew’s client list includes Nevada Power, UNLV Performing Arts Center, Clark County Library District, Clark County Park & Recreation Department, and the Major League Baseball Player’s Association, among others. Since moving to Colorado Springs Andrew has developed creative solutions for the Air Force Athletic Department, USOC, The Colorado Springs Sports Corporation, and Memorial Health Systems to name a few.

Chris Smith
Creative Partner

Chris first started working with Tom as a writer back in 2000. Many years, countless campaigns and approximately four million headlines later, they’re still finding ways to bring out the best in one another.

Throughout his career, Chris has worked with clients in categories as diverse as entertainment, education, health care, real estate, technology and restaurants. At the core of this diversity is a single guiding principle that characterizes all of his efforts: strategically-driven work that engages people in a meaningful way.

Chris’s approach to the job is both professional and personable. That way you not only get a smart guy, but you get a pretty nice guy, too.