Monday, Speaker Bios

Please check the schedule for times these speakers will be appearing during Mass Comm Week on Monday, Oct. 17.

Burnie Burns, Creator of Red vs Blue and Owner, Rooster Teeth Productions
Michael Justin “Burnie” Burns (born 1973) is an independent filmmaker living in Austin, Texas. His most notable contributions have been in machinima, although he has also worked with live-action filmmaking. In April 2003, Burns, along with several of his friends, created the Internet machinima series Red vs. Blue: The Blood Gulch Chronicles. Filmed using the Halo video game platform, Red vs. Blue was quickly acclaimed for its humor and originality, eventually elevating Burns to the status of an Internet celebrity. Such visibility allowed him to create one of the few successful machinima film-houses in the industry, Rooster Teeth Productions. Rooster Teeth has also developed the promotional series based on The Sims 2 called The Strangerhood. He has appeared at several film festivals, including Sundance and The Sydney Film Festival.

Richard Lopez, Sports Marketing Experts
Richard Lopez is the director of media relations at Sports Marketing Experts. He is a Waco, TX native and graduated from Texas State University in 2008 with a Bachelor of Arts in Fine Arts and Communications-Print Journalism. While at Texas State, Lopez was very involved in Christian organizations on campus, as well as being a Senator in Associated Student Government. In 2008, Lopez was lead author of the bill that increased the athletic fee for students, essentially doubling the student contribution from $12 million to $24 million per year. Lopez has been published in many publications including regular columns in the Waco Tribune Herald, BobcatFans Magazine and The University Star.

Lopez is currently the Assistant Director of Athletic Development and Community Liaison for Athletic Development at San Marcos Academy. The 103-year-old educational institution is one of the oldest in the state of Texas. Lopez resides in San Marcos, Texas.

Ronald Oswalt, Sports Marketing Experts
Ronald Oswalt is the CEO of Sports Marketing Experts. He is a Jackson, Mississippi native and graduated in the fall of 1989 with a Bachelor of Sciences degree in Health and Human Sciences. In 2000, he received the outstanding alumni award from the University of Southern Mississippi Alumni Association. Oswalt has over 20 years experience in medical sales and marketing but sports have always been his passion. Last year, Oswalt served as Vice-President/General Manager for the Austin Turfcats professional arena football team. The team made the championship game in just the team’s first year in the Southern Indoor Football League. His team was recognized for having the best website and best media coverage among SIFL teams in 2009. He was also recognized by the Indoor Football Network as General Manager of the Year. He has also worked for the Katy Copperheads of the National Indoor Football League, Texas Copperheads of the arena football league 2, and the Beaumont Drillers of the American Professional Football League. During his tenure with the arena football league 2 his media guide garnered several awards at league meetings. Oswalt has also worked as active media covering the New Orleans Saints, Houston Texans and the University of Southern Mississippi. He also has covered the Humanitarian Bowl, Liberty Bowl, Texas Bowl and Alamo Bowl for college football just to name a few.

Oswalt is currently the Special Assistant for Athletic Development for San Marcos Baptist Academy in San Marcos, Texas. The 103 year old educational institution is one of the oldest in the state of Texas.

David Neff, Lights. Camera. Help and Help Attack
“Do not go where the path may lead; go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson

That’s what David Neff does. Every day. At the end of the day he hopes he makes this a better journey for all us.

David J. Neff helps nonprofits and people for a living. He does that with Lights. Camera. Help. and HelpAttack! He also does large scale collaborative events like Nonprofit Bar Camp and VideoCamp Texas.He is an Author, Teacher, Speaker, Blogger, Network Weaver, and Social Media Scientist. He launched the American Cancer Society’s first software program, building the first ever user generated Web Site for those affected by cancer, and started their Social Media, Online Giving and Film departments. He is currently the creator and CEO of a nonprofit called Lights. Camera. Help. We help all other nonprofits focus on good through our film festival, education and the world’s first film focused volunteer program. Neff was a Social Media Award winner by the Austin American Statesman in 2009. The American Marketing Association awarded him the “Non Profit Social Media Marketer of the Year” in 2009. He was also a twice recipient of an American Cancer Society Futuring and Innovations grant. He was named a “New Young Philanthropist of 2010” by Giving City Magazine, a SXSW Dewey Community Award Nominee and was a finalist for “Austin Under 40” in 2011.

Neff earned a Bachelor of Science in Public Relations from the University of Texas in 2000 with a minor in Business from the McCombs School of Business. He earned the Certified Internet Webmaster certification in 2003.

Luis Patino, Univision Communication, Inc., San Antonio
Luis Patino joined Univision Communications Inc. in 1997 and has been in his current position since May 2010. Before that he was vice president and general manager for the Univision Austin stations. He served as National Sales Director for the company’s Univision KMEX and TeleFutura KFTR flagship stations. Patino also held the role of account executive for the Univision affiliate in San Diego and was later promoted to national sales director. He currently serves on the boards of the San Antonio Hispanic Chambers of Commerce, Universit
y of the Incarnate Word in San Antonio, The Association of Mexican Empresarios of SA, and the San Antonio Mayor’s Fitness Task Force.

Matt Slabaugh, Sparksight
Matt Slabaugh graduated from Texas State University with a major in advertising, and minor in communication design. While at Texas State, he worked as the assistant design editor for the University Star, as well as interned in the custom publishing, production, and art departments of Texas Monthly. Slabaugh wanted to pursue a career in layout and print design until he took Cindy Royal’s Web Design class the last semester of his senior year, and changed his perspective. After college, Slabaugh went to a small two-man web shop, then to the custom publishing department of Texas Monthly, and currently he’s an interactive designer at Sparksight, which is a design firm in Austin. Most of Slabaugh’s expertise is around front-end web design and usability, but he also has a considerable amount of print design and project management experience as well.

Cary-Anne Olsen, Concordia University
Cary-Anne Olsen (@_caryanne) is the Web & Graphic Designer and unofficial Social Media Manager for Concordia University Texas for her day job. She has worked full-time for Concordia since 2006 and enjoys exploring social media channels and the ways that HTML5 and CSS3 enable her font snobbery. Olsen enjoys balancing the importance of communicating a unified, branded message about the university with the importance of a seamless user experience. Her goals as a web designer are to make the web experience an aesthetic, user-friendly, and simple one. In her non-work time she’s a grad student, homeowner, fan of almost all things British, and avid show-goer. Olsen started out her career during her junior year in the journalism department at UT, where she took a web design class with now-Texas State professor, Dr. Cindy Royal. Through that class, Cary-Anne quickly realized she liked coding and designing more than hectic journalist deadlines and she’s been doing web design ever since.

Kathryn Legendre, freelance designer
Kathryn Legendre graduated from Texas State in 2010 with a degree in Mass Communication – Advertising and a minor in Communication Design. Legendre has been interning and/or working in the field for five years, gaining experience in advertising, journalism, print and Web design. She is currently a full-time freelancer (http://cargocollective.com/legendre). Besides design, she has a passion for music and social media. She loves the blues, classic country, being outdoors, Native American Indian culture, Texas and good typography.

Mary Ann Stutts, Texas State University, McCoy College of Business
Dr. Mary Ann Stutts is a Professor of Marketing in the McCoy College of Business at Texas State University. She holds a BBA from the University of Texas and an MBA and Ph.D. from Texas A & M University. She taught at Texas A&M as a graduate student and at Texas Southern University and Arizona State University prior to coming to Texas State University in 1982. She also held a McCoy College of Business Professor appointment from 2006-2009. Dr. Stutts teaches has taught classes in Promotional Strategy, Consumer Behavior, Principles of Marketing, and the American Advertising Federation (AAF) Student Competition at the undergraduate level. At the graduate level, she has taught Marketing Management, Current Developments in Marketing, and Integrated Marketing Communications. Professor Stutts co-teaches the Texas State American Advertising Federation’s National Student Advertising Competition class each fall and spring. Teams under her guidance have advanced to national competition nine times since 1990, winning two national championships. Her students have received numerous awards from the American Advertising Federation such as Vance Stickell internships, the AAF Hall of Achievement (for young professionals under the age of 40), and recipients of AAF’s Most Promising Minority Program.

Elizabeth Guernsey, MSW, Media Coordinator – Live Tobacco-Free Austin
Elizabeth Guernsey received her bachelor’s degree in 2001 from Texas A & M University in International Studies and Business. She later graduated with a Masters degree in Social Work Administration and Planning in 2004. Elizabeth is currently working on the Communities Putting Prevention to Work grant with the Austin/Travis County Health & Human Service Department. Her main roles within the organization are to manage the tobacco prevention media campaign, in partnership with Sherry Matthews Advocacy Marketing.

Robert Kingham, Program Supervisor – Live Tobacco-Free Austin
Robert Kingham received his bachelor’s degree in 2004 from McNeese State University in Lake Charles, LA in Heath and Human Performance. He later graduated with a Masters degree in Health Promotion and Exercise Physiology in 2009. Robert is currently working on the Communities Putting Prevention to Work (CPPW) grant with the Austin/Travis County Health and Human Services Department as the Program Supervisor. His main roles within the organization are to facilitate the implementation of all tobacco prevention and control program initiatives related to CPPW.