A core part of working here at Fluency is the opportunity to make a profound impact on virtually every aspect of our business—regardless of location. Spanning across 17 states—and counting—we’ve built quite the dynamic team and we want you to get to know them. That’s why we’ve created The Fluency Five, a five question blog series about what makes our employees special and what they love about working here.
Getting to know Drew Casper, Digital Advertising Strategist
1. What brought you to Fluency?: There's a long meandering path that led me to Fluency, but it was a story about a dirt lot Jetta that got the ball rolling.
After moving from Florida to Vermont with my previous company, I was tasked with moving the digital needle. As I ventured out into the digital landscape of Vermont, I was told a story about a dirt lot Jetta and a group of founders so bright they probably rock transition lenses all day. Those founders would gather their horses, or Jettas, and build a digital empire. An empire that I was very familiar with, having worked digital advertising in automotive for the prior three years.
And that path found direction when I connected with Mike Lane in 2019 to discuss local entrepreneurship. While my mission was to connect with local entrepreneurs, I couldn't help my curiosity about the new startup, Fluency. What are they building? Why does that guy have so many dumplings? And where do I get one of those hats? A million questions ran through my mind at the time, but there's a pattern here of leadership, vision, and the skills to systematically put the pieces in place to build a business with a solid foundation.
In regards to the meeting with Mike, we connected and chatted, but that was that. Fluency was in its early days and I had just started a new position in digital strategy. So, as they say, timing is everything (but color me intrigued).
Some time would pass, and COVID would disrupt our lives. The new position was now old, and in August 2022 found myself searching for a new path. I had reached back out to Jim who first told me this dirt lot Jetta story, and asked if he knew of startups that needed a digital nerd.
Jim gave a sensible chuckle and said, "It's ironic, Drew. It's ironic because when you first moved to Vermont, I told your direct manager to keep you off the 5th floor and away from those Fluency folks 'cause we'll lose you. Now I'm going to refer you to them because they have an opening for an advertising strategist that you'd be perfect for."
So, that's the story of what brought me to Fluency. Drawn in by leadership and vision for a new way of thinking about digital advertising. What closed the deal was reading these blog posts about the people of Fluency. It's an amazing, dynamic group trailblazing the path forward. And while sometimes the path feels meandering, it's always guided by leadership to a big blue ocean of opportunity.
2. What’s something interesting about what you do at Fluency?: It's interesting to see the effect that automation has on organizations. In college, automation was a key concept that was emphasized when considering how to maximize profit. Thinking outside of that direct impact on revenue, it's interesting to watch agencies or enterprise companies work through that thought process of scale and automation. Watching that "a-ha" moment click for leadership teams is fascinating to see the response.
3. In your opinion, what is the most interesting thing about Fluency?: Our F3 and team meetings. It's always interesting to see what new releases are coming out, but also what other projects teams are working on and how they problem solve. If I had to absolutely pick one thing, it would be the problem solving because the Fluency platform is feature rich, so there's multiple paths to a solution using different methods.
4. Can you tell us something personal about you? Oh, I love fun facts so I'm going to share my favorites:
- I'm a former meteorologist who served in the military and during that time I was uploaded into the Library of Congress.
- I've been a participant in a Japanese Reality TV show that I've never seen.
- My fastball topped out at 95mph when I was playing college baseball and while I haven't thrown in years, last weekend I hit 81 mph on the radar gun. Still got it!
- Haven't cut my hair since COVID.
5. What are you most looking forward to this year in your role and/or at the company?: Learning, learning, learning. There's so many big brains here at Fluency, I'm looking forward to learning from their experience and expertise.
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