Over my four years of working with Mike, I realized there wasn’t a graphic package—in any medium, on any platform, and dealing with subjects from residential construction to gourmet cooking—he couldn’t deliver in spades. And I relied on it. As chief content officer for Taunton Press, I interacted with Mike on dozens of special interest publication covers, promotions, video openers, animation, illustration, DVD packaging, new-product logos, apps, and much more. He is inventive, strategic, imaginative, bright, practical, and quick. Yet for all his enormous graphic talent, I think I appreciated Mike’s style of working even more. He is a great listener and collaborator. He loves to learn and wants to understand the subject and its audience or customer so he can make a connection with his graphics. Like any accomplished art director, he develops a favorite idea or approach when presented with the design challenge, but he will develop alternatives as well and shows incredible flexibility when working with editors, marketers or senior executives. Always up for a challenge, Mike developed Taunton’s early, fully featured I-Pad apps with frequent trips to the IT guys and lots of his own time. Finally, Mike is also a good manager and possesses a wicked sense of humor—helpful when you "work for" nearly every division in the company. However it didn't matter whose project he worked on, the feedback was always the same: great guy and awesome artist.
Paul Spring, SVP/Chief Content Officer, The Taunton Press