Alums find creative niche at cutting-edge agency
by Rachel O'Kelley, '12
Adam Van Ornum, '02, Ryan Moede, '04, and Natalie Danielson, '06, are using their unique gifts at 14Four, a Spokane agency that works closely with advertising agencies to create online campaigns. The alums' work includes web design and creating interactive websites for agencies working with large corporations like McDonald's, Jansport and Microsoft.
Danielson's journey to 14Four began with information from another Whitworth grad, who was leaving the agency to go back to school. Danielson was interviewed and offered the job, and she accepted the position the next day. She was most recently part of a year-long project in which she worked on a large, user-generated site with a heavy content-management system that tied in multiple social platforms. She says that this experience taught her useful management skills, requiring her to make difficult decisions and to manage the participating parties. Of her undergraduate preparation for such a challenge, Danielson says, "I think Whitworth not only prepares students well academically, but it challenges graduates not to live life sitting down – to be active participants in society." Whitworth's interpersonal communications course was one of the most memorable, Danielson says, because it taught her skills that are vital to any career and, more important, to life.
Moede joined the 14Four team last spring, after working for an interactive agency in Washington, D.C. Moede says it is great to be back in Spokane working for "an amazing shop" and getting to work on some of the biggest brands in the country. His work with 14Four includes a wide range of brands; lately, he has been working on applications for Live Nation and Jansport. Looking back to his undergrad years, Moede says that Whitworth's emphasis on building community and relationships has helped to prepare him for work at 14Four. "In my job, you can build a cool website," he says, "but if you don't foster and strengthen great relationships with your clients, nothing else matters."
After Van Ornum graduated from Whitworth, he left Spokane and headed to Seattle to work on IT and web development. He soon received a call from a computer science professor telling him that a Spokane computer game company, Cyan Worlds, was looking for someone with his skill set. Within weeks he was back in Spokane. After five years at Cyan Worlds, his circumstances changed and he began to look for a new job. Through networking, Van Ornum was interviewed by14Four for a position as a web developer. Due to his experience in that area at Whitworth, he was able to join the 14Four team. Van Ornum says that he "gets to work on a wide variety of projects for a wide variety of brands, ranging for simple, single-page sites to large, data-driven community sites." He has worked with Reader's Digest, Gonzaga University, and Microsoft (where he helped develop Live@Edu). His work in the computer science department at Whitworth gave him "experience working with the foundation of web development technologies," he says. "So it was easy to learn the advances that took place in the years in between my time at Whitworth and my start at 14Four."
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