Ad manager graduates, says ‘That’s all folks!’

Al Thompson, Ad Manager

Walking into senior year with 36-credits until graduation and a part-time internship, I thought that adding a job at the Advance-Titan sounded like a great idea. That was a psycho move, but since then, the A-T has provided me with invaluable experience, memories and friendships that I will cherish for a lifetime.

As a motivated Advertising Major, I immediately expressed interest when my good friend and roommate, Chip Skalet, assistant sports editor at the time, told me about the open Advertising Manager position at the newspaper.

I’m going to be honest, when I signed up for the position, I thought that I was signing up for ad-copy-layout when I actually signed up to sell and manage the advertising space of the newspaper. Those are two completely different things.
Once I got the job, as the great Michael Scott would say, “I knew exactly what to do, but in a much more real sense, I had no idea what to do.” After fumbling through the motions for a couple of weeks, I had finally caught on to what I was supposed to be doing. I had learned the keys to the position: patience, persistence and delegation.

With my limited availability, I was in dire need of a work partner that I could delegate some of the work to. I went through five rounds of searching for a reliable companion before I found Aaron Tomski. He has been a major help and has also proved to be great at the job. He will be taking my position as Ad Manager next semester.

Aside from the actual work that my position has entailed, there is much to be said about the folks that work their asses off to bring the paper to life every Thursday. The land of the A-T newsroom is full of characters. In fact, I’ve caught myself thinking of the newsroom as the set of a sitcom more than a couple of times.

With that being said, I will be doing a couple of shout outs to some of the folks that have had a great impact on my A-T experience.

I want to start by giving a huge shout Ti Windish and Alex Nemec for pursuing their journalistic dreams upon graduating last semester. Keep up the good work.

I would also like to give Morgan Van Lanen a shout out for welcoming me into the Advance-Titan family by hiring me into the Ad Manager position.

Shout out to Collin Goeman for completely redefining the Campus Connections section of the paper. Honestly, that is the only section that I pay close attention to.

Shout out to Laura Dickinson. It’s Wednesday my dudes.

Shout out to Mike Johrendt and Neal Hogden for keeping the sports section crisp.
Shout out to Alicia Kahl for designing some dope T-shirts.

And, finally, I want to give a prodigious shout to Chip Skalet for taking on the role as Editor-in-Chief next semester. You’ll be a great leader, my guy.