With a journalism and organizational background, I am Amanda Elliott, your new Marketing Coordinator. I am passionate about anticipating needs, solving problems, and making projects fun. Supporting the Sandstorm team with many of their projects, including web and CRM, I love seeing the potential in client challenges. Having the soul of a fashionista, I have a compulsion to always make something a bit more visually appealing.

Coming from the Florida tropics to the Windy City has been one of my dreams since living in Chicago two years ago—interning at StreetWise magazine. A city girl at heart, I am especially grateful to unlock my cultural anthropological desires and shop, dance, and taste my way through Chicago’s diverse neighborhoods.

Chicago native Laura Luckman Kelber has joined the Sandstorm executive leadership team as our Strategy Director. Demonstrating our commitment to growth and providing more thought leadership to our clients, Sandstorm hired Laura to fill a new role at Sandstorm—a role that is solely focused on solving clients’ marketing problems by bridging the gap between what is and what could be.

After many years of working for large agencies, Laura wanted more time to practice her craft. With both a B.S. in Political Science and an MBA in Marketing from the University of Illinois, and 20 years of marketing experience, Laura borrows from a variety of intellectual constructs to solve clients’ problems. Combining seemingly disparate ideas to solve a problem, Laura unearths unexpected insights to help clients’ fuel their success. Having led digital strategies for top brands such as Sprint, Victoria’s Secret and State Farm in her previous positions, Laura has a variety of vertical experience. Sandstorm provides Laura with the perfect environment to foster thoughtful creativity and apply it to our clients’ businesses.

A unique individual from the (sometimes pink, sometimes purple) tips of her hair to her warm smile, Laura’s charismatic personality is magnetic. A passionate vegetarian, Laura has recently delved into the macro and micro impacts of nutrition on society. As her favorite author, Dorothy Parker, would say, “The cure for boredom is curiosity. There is no cure for curiosity.”

One of Sandstorm’s cornerstones has always been to learn and share at every possible opportunity. After being named a Top Gen Y employer for the third year in a row, we are building upon that cornerstone once more. Sandstorm Design is proud to announce the birth of our brand new Sandstorm Internship Program!

We are always looking for new ideas and a fresh voice. This program will bring together our strong, well-respected workforce with a new drive to learn and share. While the internship program is still in its infancy, we are already seeing progress. We have recently hired our first Social Media and Copywriting Intern, and boy is he handsome. Full disclosure, he is writing this blog post. My name is Matt Chiaramonte and I am looking forward to contributing to not only this blog, but also to many future creative and informative discussions regarding strategic marketing in an ever-evolving environment. Say that five times fast.

Internship Program Details

We plan to continue to grow this program and have begun working with local Chicago recruiting channels including Columbia College Chicago, Loyola University and Internships.com. In the near future, we will be looking for individuals to help us out in the fields of:

• Sales and Marketing
• Social Media & Copywriting

This internship program serves as a tool that provides professional experience in the interactive world to creative and intelligent individuals. We look forward to finding and working with interns to help achieve our mission.

While proud of every accomplishment and accolade we are lucky enough to receive, Sandstorm will never stop moving forward. We believe that hard work, innovation, and positivity make us more than just a great company; they make us a great family. We look forward to adding a few new members.

To apply, please send a cover letter and your resume to interns@sandstormdesign.com and include 140 characters as to why you want to intern at Sandstorm. In the subject line, include what type of work you’re interested in (sales/marketing, social media, copywriting).

Mike Kolin joins our Chicago marketing firm as the new managing director. He’ll be leading Sandstorm in new business development and expanding the company in both B2B and B2C markets. Mike began his career on the creative side. Having served as a creative director, he’s able to carry over insights into the account executive role. He’s a strategic thinker both in marketing and in nature (mother nature, that is). Mike is quite the sportsman and enjoys hunting, fishing and all things outdoors.

Welcome to Sandstorm, Mike!

Jordan Harness is our newest Interactive Project Manager. Supporting our directors, she will guide all of our projects (marketing campaigns, usability studies, Drupal development, and more) from concept to completion. Jordan is quite familiar with the hustle and bustle of a Chicago marketing agency and knows her stuff when it comes to strategic marketing, interactive campaigns and user experience design. When she’s not keeping Sandstormers on track, she can be found walking her 3-legged poodle, dancing her way around Lincoln Park or even hangin’ with Poochie at the infamous Wiener’s Circle.

Welcome, Jordan!

Some of the staff at Sandstorm, literally showing upward growth!

2012 is proving to be yet another award-winning year for Sandstorm Design! In March we were named as a Top B2B Interactive Agency by Crain’s BtoB Magazine. And this week, our Principal Sandy Marsico traveled to Boston to attend the awards ceremony for the Top 100 Fastest Growing Inner City Companies in America. We are so honored and humbled to have landed at the #43 spot, with a 33% 5-year annual growth.

With our Chicago marketing firm’s move to a larger space last year and hiring a number of new employees, we’ve been steadily and strategically growing. We couldn’t be more excited about this achievement, and we thank Fortune, Harvard, ICIC and all of our amazing partners who’ve worked with us to create impactful work!

Sandstorm Design is on the lookout for an Interactive Project Manager. If you have at least 3 years of experience managing interactive and web development projects in a fast-paced agency environment, this might be the job for you.

To be the successful candidate, you will need in-depth understanding of creative development, interactive development and project management processes with the ability to manage multiple projects at one time. You will need to put in practice and enforce these project processes and standards. All of this requires excellent organization and time management, which are fundamental to project and client management success. Strong leadership abilities in addition to outstanding written and public speaking skills are a must. (You will be presenting complex information to both technical and non-technical audiences). You would need experience managing comprehensive web development projects, creating and managing Statements of Work, status reports, project timelines and resource projections. In addition to the management aspects you will need a strong understanding and experience with web strategies and online technologies, including web site development, SEO, social media plus knowledge of web analytics and how to apply them. Familiarity with Drupal (Sandstorm’s preferred CMS) and BaseCamp are definite pluses.

Our Interactive Project Manager will coordinate and lead design, copywriting and development teams through all stages of project development. This includes building and maintaining relationships with clients and project teams to deliver project objectives, on time, within budget and to the full satisfaction of the clients. Estimating budgets and creating project plans is key. Also, you will effectively communicate project scope and milestones to clients, vendors and agency team members and identifying and explaining the budget and timeline implications of project scope changes.

Sandstorm Design creates powerful brand experiences with our unique blend of strategic marketing, web design and usability services. Located on Chicago’s north side, we help companies identify, craft, and clearly communicate their marketing messages in a creative, intuitive and strategic way. We’re a creative bunch with a witty sense of humor. Why it’s awesome to work here: paid day off and free lunch for your birthday, you don’t have to dress up, you get all the traditional perks of a big company (401K, healthcare benefits, etc.) without the politics, free snacks (and COFFEE) all day. Lots of growth potential, too!

If you think you’d be a great addition to our team, please submit a cover letter, resume, 3 URLs of web sites that you were the lead project manager on and a salary history to jobs@sandstormdesign.com.

We thank all applicants for their interest; however only candidates selected for an interview will be contacted.

Local candidates only. No phone calls please. No recruiters.

Meet Nick Henderson, Sandstorm’s new Relationship Manager. A friendly guy in person and on the phone, Nick is building relationships with new clients in addition to strengthening our connection with current clients. Nick comes from a long experience working one-on-one with many organizations and associations, and we’re glad to add his skills and personality to our Chicago marketing firm. You can often find him hitting the links (golfing, that is, although at Sandstorm, he can help you to create some links on your user-oriented web site). Being a proud Texan, Nick is a fan of the Dallas Cowboys and The Texas Rangers. (We promise to not hold that against him).

We’re glad to have you working alongside us. Welcome, Nick!