Resume Blog

Resume

2005-06-23T09:43:00.000-07:00

tacanderson@yahoo.com e-mail
http://www.tacsresume.blogspot.com/ blog
208-409-1953 cell
Andrew “Tac” Anderson

Education
01/94 – 04/98 Boise State University Boise ID
B.A. Communications
01/05 – 05/05 Boise State University Boise ID
Public Relations Class

Internships
05/05 – Present Scott Peyron & Associates Boise ID
02/05 – 04/05 Marketing Media Group Boise ID

Experience
03/05 – Present Primerica Financial Services Boise ID
Independent Business Rep/ Financial Planner
· Analyze financial situation and goals of clients.
· Put together a financial plan and make recommendations.
· Read and interpret insurance, mortgage and investment documents.

03/02 – 01/05 City Boardshop Las Vegas NV
Owner/ President
· In charge of all daily operations.
· Planned, organized and executed many special events.
· Planned, designed, and wrote all marketing and advertising

03/01 – 03/02 Farm Basket Las Vegas NV
General Manager
· In charge of all daily operations..
· Revised outdated policy manual.
· Responsible for weekly catering accounts, worked to expand current accounts as well as find new ones.
· Worked on team that was responsible for planning new locations.

02/01 – 02/02 Escape Adventures Las Vegas NV
Mt Bike Tour Guide
· Responsible for guiding tourists through the desert and bringing them back alive.
· Pick up, delivery, and repair of bicycles and tourists, both in the shop and on the trail.
·
03/98 – 05/01 Albertsons Phoenix AZ - Las Vegas NV
Assistant Manager
· Trained for two years in store operations and management.
· Worked as a manager for the Front End, GM, and Grocery departments.
· Placed as an Assistant Grocery Manager in Phoenix
· Transferred to Las Vegas to assist in the American Foods/Albertsons merger.
· Worked in multiple stores where the manager was out of the store for training. Responsible for entire store operations, including overseeing store department heads.

For more detailed info about me and my experiences, visit my blog; www.tacsresume.blogspot.com.

05/05 - Present Scott Peyron & Associates

2005-06-23T09:42:00.000-07:00

05/05 – Present
Scott Peyron & Associates
www.peyron.com

Intern
Speaking of finely tuned PR agencies… I was offered an internship at Scott Peyron & associates because of my performance in a PR class, which as I said earlier was taught by Peyron’s VP, Joanne Taylor
I have been amazed at the level of professionalism and experience present at Peyron. The work they have done for clients like Tamarack Resort, the Lee Peske Learning Center, the Middle Fork Outfitters Association, and many others is amazing. Not only do they work hard, but also they have a lot of fun while they do it.
I have been very lucky here to participate in some of the work for these clients. Not just intern type busy work, but real work on planning, press releases, reports and more. On several occasions I’ve been able to come to them with my own ideas and been given the go ahead to execute them. It is encouraging to be invited in on planning meetings and be encouraged to participate and see some of my ideas come about. I have also enjoyed being trusted enough to work independently on projects and assignments given to me.

02/05 - 04/05 MMG

2005-06-23T09:41:00.000-07:00

02/05 – 04/05
MMG
www.mmgboise.com

Intern
Knowing that one class would not be enough to prepare me to work in the PR/marcomm field, I began looking around for an internship. I was fortunate enough to be looking for a PR internship at the same time that Marketing Media Group (MMG) was looking to expand their PR department.
This was my first time being exposed to a marketing agency. The level of creative thinking was amazing, and refreshing. It was great working with people who truly enjoyed what they did.
Michelle, who is an account manager at MMG, took on the task of doing the PR. Until now they had not had a specific PR person. Michelle was also relatively new to PR, having a business degree, so together we began building the PR department from scratch. My job here was mostly database and contact information gathering, typical intern stuff. I also had the opportunity to work on a variety of accounts including Troy McClain, and the Idaho Steelheads, as well as work on several big proposals.
It was great to help build this from the ground up, and see things that you probably wouldn’t see if you walked into a finely tuned PR agency, things that you might just take for granted.

01/05 - 05/05 PR Class

2005-06-23T09:40:00.000-07:00

01/05 – 05/05
PR Class

Student
I originally graduated in 1998 with a degree in communications, not knowing exactly what I wanted to do. After seven years of working, I had a much better idea of what I wanted to be when I grew up.
I loved the marketing and public relations aspect of owning my own business. As soon as I got back to Boise I signed up for the only PR class BSU offers. It was an undergraduate class, so the credits and the grade didn’t matter to me. Because of this it’s why I did so well in the class; I really wanted to learn all I could about the craft of PR.
Joanne Taylor who is the VP of Scott Peyron & Associates was our teacher. Having an adjunct professor with great real world experience was definitely the best part of the class.
For my class project I put together a PR plan for the Idaho Foodbank. From my experience as a grocery store manager, I was able to design a unique food drive challenge, which will involve the entire Treasure Valley and its’ Mayors. The plan has been presented to Albertsons and is being incorporated into a larger PR plan that they will use.

03/05 - Present PFS

2005-06-23T08:59:00.000-07:00

03/05 - Present
Primerica

Independent Business Rep.

Primerica Financial Services (PFS) is the distribution hub of Citigroup. It's kind of a weird company when looked at from, the outside. Its members seem zealous. Their whole goal is to show families how to be debt free and financially independent while saving for retirement. Usually they can do this without you spending any more money, then you already are. Because Citi is the largest company in the world, they are able to offer some extremely unique mortgages and investment plans that no one else is able to do.
For me this was an opportunity to learn how insurance, mortgages and investments work, while making some extra money and helping out some friends and family. I am licensed to do mortgages; I have passed my insurance test (on the first try, thank you) so I can sell life insurance, and am currently in the process of becoming securities licensed, so I can do investments and annuities.
This is extremely useful information, and has been a good mental exercise to learn something new. I'm glad I've learned these important principles, but I am not interested in a straight commission sales job forever.

05/02 - 01/05 City Boardshop

2005-06-23T08:22:00.000-07:00

05/02 – 01/05
City Boardshop
Owner/President
Owning my own business was by far the hardest thing I've ever done. And like most challenging experiences, offered the most education and personal growth. I’ve always had the mindset of an entrepreneur. Whether it is the constant business ideas rolling around in my head, or having a feeling of ownership at every job, I always think about what could be done to build the business or make it better.
Steve, the owner of Farm Basket, once told me a story about how he and his friends would play on these water towers. One night they were playing too late and it started to get dark. Realizing they had to get home in a hurry, his friend jumped to the ground even though it was too dark to see well. Steve was afraid, and the longer he waited the darker, and scarier it became. Finally he jumped. He told me this was much like owning your own business, the longer you waited to do it, the harder it became. So I jumped.
When I bought City Boardshop, the previous owner had been trying to sell it for several years. The shop had a good reputation, but inventory was low. The owner’s interest level lagged and it reflected in the sales. City was doing about $200 a day on average. I instantly put together a plan to boost sales and get people back in the door. Within eight months, sales were over $1,000 a day.
Our core customer had always been the pure skate kid, not the mall kids who wear skate clothes, but the kids who ate, slept, and breathed skateboarding. Guerilla marketing was our secret weapon. Nontraditional, punk rock, ant mall/chain stores attitude, drove the core skaters to us. I started hanging out at the skate parks, giving out stickers, flyers and getting to know the kids. The key here was to be genuine. These kids can smell a fake instantly, but if you really care about them and what they’re into, not just them spending money at your shop, they’ll be your most loyal customers.
City has always had the best locally sponsored team, so we began working on a new video. The skate crowd in Vegas, like almost any town, is tight knit. Once word got out that we were making another video, it created an instant buzz, for the next year. When we finally had the video premiere, we brought in all the pro skaters who came from Vegas (most of whom were once sponsored by City), we rented out the largest theatre at the Palms Casino, which we filled past capacity. It was a huge success.
City also had a small but loyal snowboard crowd. To build on this and separate us from every other store, especially the chain store, we made a plan to support the scene. Normally you do this by sponsoring contests at the resorts. The local resort had just changed owners and was unwilling to do contests at the time. Brian Head in Utah, while a good resort was too far away to benefit us in any sponsorship. So we decided to host our own events, in our parking lot. Very few shops did stuff like this, it wasn’t unheard of, but no one in Nevada or Utah, and very few shops in California held parking lot demos. We built two, 10-foot drop in ramps, a 12 foot fun box, and an eight foot rail. We started off by hauling snow from the mountain, but later made some connections at one of the local ice rinks, to get their shaved ice. It usually took about five or six pick up trucks full of snow, depending on how hot it was, to line the ramps, run ups and landings with snow. People in Vegas were floored. Not so much by the structures that we built, but by the fact that we had real snow, in our parking lot.
We increased attendance by scheduling local bands to play. We partnered with Red Bull and other snowboard vendors to donate prizes for the competition. We publicized each event by providing photos and the story to Las Vegas’ Smash Magazine and California’s Happy Magazine, both cover music and core board sports. Each of these events brought between 300 and 500 attendees, including people from California and Utah who came to compete.
We even did a similar event for wakeboarding in our parking lot, where we built a 10 ft by 56 ft wood frame, lined it with roofing tarp, placed the rail from our snow contest in the middle, filled it with water, and pulled the wakeboarders with A.T.V.’s.
The best way I found to promote our events was to go back to our roots of guerilla marketing. Besides distributing flyers and promoting word of mouth we used www.myspace.com. MySpace is an online community that the mid teen to late twenties crowd is very active in. I set up a page for myself to represent the shop, and all of my employees had pages as well. By posting events and news about the shop on our pages and telling everyone linked to our pages to repost the announcements, we were able to create a huge underground buzz with out ever spending a dime on advertising.
We had such success with these parking lot events that we organized a large scale pro contest during S.I.A. (the annual snow sports convention), to take place at the Hard Rock Hotel and Casino. We designed a huge structure to be built in the parking lot, just for the event. It took an entire semi truck full of ice and a modified tree chipper to provide enough snow. We brought in industry sponsors; Burton, D.V.S., Smith Optics, Planet Earth, and Bear Mountain along with the Hard Rock. We had more top professionals competing in our event than were in the X-Games the week before, and approximately five thousand in attendance. It became so successful that the Hard Rock stole the idea from us and did it again the next year (I heard it wasn’t as good).
After two and a half years of owning our own shop, and after having our third kid, we decided we wanted to move home to Boise, so we could raise our kids near their extended family. We sold the shop, with much protest from our customers, and moved back to start over.

03/01 - 03/02 Farm Basket

2005-06-23T08:21:00.000-07:00

03/01 – 03/02
Farm Basket

General Manager
Through a mutual acquaintance I met Steve, the owner of a small restaurant chain in Las Vegas. Farm Basket was a family owned corporation with several locations in Las Vegas, which went under. When it went under, Steve, who was an area manager, bought two of the locations and still runs them.
Farm Basket had not opened a new store in 20 or so years. I became Farm Basket’s General Manager with the understanding that we were to open more locations. I worked very closely with Steve in making plans that we would use to open multiple locations.
I was primarily responsible for running one location, while Steve was usually at the other. In addition to the daily ordering, banking, schedule writing, and other duties, I updated a very old policy manual, and managed a decent size catering account. Every Saturday, we would cater to several of the car dealerships in town. I was responsible for maintaining these accounts as well as finding new ones. I also handled the small amount of advertising for Farm Basket.
Six to eight months into my employment, I realized that Steve was never going to open another store. Despite the huge growth in Las Vegas, Steve has always been afraid to open another location. He was very satisfied with the results of his two locations, and is not willing to risk the money it would take to open another store.
This was a great opportunity for me to see the differences between working for a large corporation and a small one. I also broadened my people skills and managerial experience. This was also my first experience with advertising.

02/01 - 03/02 Escape Adventures

2005-06-23T08:20:00.000-07:00

02/01 – 03/02
Escape Adventures
Mountain Bike Tour Guide
I am a mountain biker. I have been since high school. I love mountain biking. While I was in Las Vegas I became friends with the owner of Escape Adventures, Jared. Jared owns Las Vegas Cyclery, Moab Cyclery, and Escape Adventures, a biking outdoor outfitter. They do tours all over the Rocky mountain area. I had a pretty weird schedule while at Albertsons, and this worked out for me to go biking with Jared quite a bit during the weekdays.
After biking with Jared for several months, he asked me if I wanted to do bike tours, there in Las Vegas. I thought, you want to pay me to ride my bike? You bet. This was extremely fun. I got to meet people from all over the world, while doing something that I enjoy.
When my hours were cut back at Albertsons I started doing more tours. I rarely took a paycheck from this job, instead opting to keep it as store credit, for when I needed repairs or upgrades on my bike (needed is a relative term).
I would pick up people at the casinos, drive them out to the trails, and drop them off when it was all done. Often times I would help out in the shop when they were busy. This was the fun job.

08/99 - 05/01 Albertsons

2005-06-23T08:18:00.000-07:00

08/99 – 05/01
Albertsons

Assistant Manager
After I completed the training program I was placed as a Grocery Third, in Phoenix AZ. I wasn’t at this store long before I was asked to transfer to Las Vegas. Albertsons and American foods had just merged, and in Las Vegas and California they were forced to sell several of their stores. They chose to sell the Albertsons in Las Vegas and convert all of the Lucky’s to Albertsons. This was a very confusing time. I was brought in after the stores had been converted, and was one of very few “Albertsons” employees. They told me when I was moved that I was expected to help the “Lucky’s” employees switch to doing things the way Albertsons liked them to be done. This was very challenging.
I was placed in a million dollar a week store, with over 150 employees. The Store Director was out on medical leave, and a temporary Store Director was filling in. The Grocery Manager was placed in Store Director Training, leaving myself and the Grocery Third to run the store. Several grocery employees resented me being placed above them, or disliked me being an “Albertsons” employee. The Third and I got along very well, which seemed to calm the other employees. This was a great experience to be in such a busy store and learn to overcome the undeserving hostility. I found it interesting watching the two companies become one, and the challenges that created.
Next I was placed, in North Las Vegas. I really enjoyed my Store Director and Grocery Manager. They were both old Albertsons employees, so this made it easier for me to know how they wanted things done. After a while, my Store Director was transferred and we got a new one. I had heard a lot of negative things about the new Store Director before he showed up. Apparently he had been brought up on disciplinary actions multiple times. The Grocery Manager and I decided to give him the benefit of the doubt, and while he and I were never friends we worked together without any problems for several months.
Again, my Grocery Manager was placed in Store Director training. It was also at this time that we got another District Manager. For reason’s I don’t understand, my Store Director began cutting my hours while I was trying to do my job and the Grocery Managers job. The cut in hours led to less managing hours being spent in the store, and the grocery department suffered. This led to a couple bad visits from our District Manager. At this time I saw a more unpleasant side of my store director. Refusing to boost my hours or my help, he began implying that I should work off the clock. This was unacceptable to me.
Over the course of the merger, Albertsons had become a different company and was going through some bad times. Stocks were down which put a lot of pressure on managers to save money, usually in the form of labor $. There were several other changes that happened and I decided that I was going to move on. I was moved to a new store to help open it. This was a great opportunity to see how a store goes up, from the inside. Shortly after the store opened, I left Albertsons.
I’d like to say now that I don’t have any hard feeling towards Albertsons. I am very grateful for the experiences I gained there. I developed a much stronger work ethic, and learned the importance of being a good manager, and a good employee. Many of the negatives I faced with Albertsons are normal in large corporations. Whenever you work for a publicly traded company, you’re going to experience cut backs, down sizing, and working for people you may not like. I realize that all of these are real life lessons that I’m glad I’ve learned to deal with.

03/98 - 08/99 Albertsons

2005-06-23T08:15:00.000-07:00

03/98 – 08/99
Albertsons
Accelerated Management Development
Albertson’s was my first job after graduating college. And I can honestly say that I got the job because of my degree, and the fact that my step-dad worked at the General Office (more on that later). You had to have a college degree to be placed in the program. The idea was to bring a better quality of manager to Albertsons.
I was hired under the now defunct Accelerated Management Development (AMD) program (I believe they’re using that acronym for something else now). I was sent to Phoenix, AZ to begin my training. I left my very pregnant wife to finish up her semester at BSU and pack up the one bedroom house we were renting. I literally had no place to stay or no idea what I was going to do. My step-dad was Manager of Distribution Projects, and Phoenix has a distribution center, so he knew several people there. He was able to get me set up to rent a room from someone he knew, while I was on my way there.
Once there I was placed in my first store, to train on the Front End. For those of you not familiar with grocery store lingo, the Front End is the check out stands and that general area. I trained on the Front End for six months, going from almost no cash handling experience to counting all the tills and the entire safe at the beginning and end of my shifts. That was the easy part, the real challenge became scheduling; 12-20 checkers, a dozen or so courtesy clerks (a.k.a. baggers,) their union mandated breaks and lunches, all while trying to use less labor $ than the year before and keep the customers happy.
The Front End is a difficult and frustrating part of the store to work in, if you’re not good with people, because you are the last person to interact with the customer. If the customer is having a bad day, or an unhappy shopping experience, you’ll hear about it, and in 30 seconds or less you need to fix whatever is wrong, make them happy and get them out the door so you can take care of the next customer. I enjoyed working on the Front End. I love working with people, and I love the fast paced environment.
From here I was moved to General Merchandise (GM) and another store. I was at this store for eight months. This was my first experience with working under a manager who was taken from the store to go through Store Director Training. They kept me at that store to help the Assistant GM manager, in running the department, while the GM manager was away. While the GM Manager was away, I took on more of a managerial role than I had before. I did more daily ordering as well as some of the seasonal pre-books.
After this I went to the Grocery Department and yet another store. As you can imagine, the Grocery Department is the heart of the store. Under the Grocery Department are several smaller departments, each having a department head; the Dairy and Frozen departments, as well as Night Crew. During my training I worked in all of these departments, learning the ins and outs as well as ordering for all of these departments.
While at this store I didn’t have to deal with my Manager going to training, but we did have our Grocery Third quit. I was placed as the acting Third for several months while they found a replacement. One of the Third’s main responsibilities is to close the store. Once all the other managers and department heads have left, usually by six or seven, the Third is in charge of the entire store. Typical closing duties are unload any trucks that show up, fill, face or change out any or all displays, and when it’s busy you may be required to check on the Front End, or fry chicken in the Service Deli. Anything that comes up in the store, you are the person to deal with it. It requires an extreme amount of time management to accomplish all of this and still get your regular work done.

Misc.

2005-06-23T07:55:00.000-07:00

Eagle Scout
Served a two year mission for my church
Mediation Certified
Life licensed for the state of Idaho
Father of three beautifull children
& married for 10 years.

The resume at a glance

2005-06-16T19:02:00.000-07:00

tacanderson@yahoo.com e-mail
http://www.tacsresume.blogspot.com/ blog
208-409-1953 cell

Andrew “Tac” Anderson

Education 01/94 – 04/98 Boise State University Boise ID
B.A. Communications
01/05 – 05/05 Boise State University Boise ID
Public Relations Class

Internships 05/05 – Present Scott Peyron & Associates Boise ID
02/05 – 04/05 Marketing Media Group Boise ID

Experience 03/05 – Present Primerica Financial Services Boise ID
Independent Business Rep/ Financial Planner
· Analyze financial situation and goals of clients.
· Put together a financial plan and make recommendations.
· Read and interpret insurance, mortgage and investment documents.

03/02 – 01/05 City Boardshop Las Vegas NV
Owner/ President
· In Charge of daily operations.
· Planned, organized and executed many special events.
· Planned, designed, and wrote all marketing and advertising

03/01 – 03/02 Farm Basket Las Vegas NV
General Manager
· Responsible for dailly operations.
· Revised outdated policy manual.
· Responsible for weekly catering accounts, worked to expand current accounts as well as find new ones.
· Worked on team that was responsible for planning new locations.

02/01 – 02/02 Escape Adventures Las Vegas NV
Mt Bike Tour Guide
· Responsible for guiding tourists through the desert and bringing them back alive.
· Pick up, delivery, and repair of bicycles and tourists, both in the shop and on the trail.

03/98 – 05/01 Albertsons Phoenix AZ - Las Vegas NV
Assistant Manager
· Trained for two years in store operations and management.
· Worked as a manager for the Front End, GM, and Grocery departments.
· Placed as an Assistant Grocery Manager in Phoenix
· Transferred to Las Vegas to assist in the American Foods/Albertsons merger.
· Worked in multiple stores where the manager was out of the store for training. Responsible for entire store operations, including overseeing store department heads.