Mike is one of the few people at JS with a bona fide title. You can call him Creative Director, but we call him pretty awesome, considering his portfolio of award-winning work. He likens his job to a symphony conductor, bringing unity and focus across disciplines to deliver brand harmony. It’s a process he calls “getting to the second best idea.” As Mike will tell you, it’s easy to stop at the first solution, but the real gems require a willingness to dig deeper.

Trained as an art director, Mike has worked for some of the top advertising agencies in the country, including DDB in Dallas, Hill Holliday and Arnold Worldwide in Boston, and Carmichael Lynch in Minneapolis. He’s had the opportunity to work around the world on ground-breaking projects like American Legacy’s anti-tobacco truth campaign, which Adweek called one of the most successful marketing campaigns ever created. Other clients include McDonald’s, Dunkin Donuts, Jack Links, Harley-Davidson and Porsche.

His secret sauce includes an insatiable curiosity, creative confidence and self-deprecating humility, which makes him inspiring and endearing all at once.

Before joining Jackson Spalding, Mike took a turn running his own firm and collaborating on high-profile, multi-channel advertising projects. These ranged from The Preakness Stakes to a horse-race of a different kind for a presidential candidate. He also started a Branded Entertainment venture, writing and producing content for networks such as Discovery, TLC, NatGeo, ESPN and Animal Planet just to name a few.

While writing for the Food Network, he founded a food startup that remains a passion project to this day.

We’re proud to tell you that despite all this impressiveness, Mike is a local product. He grew up in Decatur, graduated from The University of Georgia and Atlanta’s Creative Circus, and married his high school sweetheart, Lisa. He has served on the Board of Directors for the Museum of Design Atlanta (MODA), UGA’s Grady College of Journalism Alumni Board and is a perennial volunteer for the Atlanta Community Food Bank and Habitat for Humanity International.

His go-tos to get the creative juices flowing? Food, wine, tennis, landscaping, power tools and three very active kids.