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PlattForm People

Can you hear the rhythm of the office beat? Kevin Kuzma can. Like slowly entering into a jazz club, at first the beats and rhythms seem erratic. But once you sit down and absorb the feeling around you, you start to understand how the music blends together. Kevin describes this is how he feels when he is at work at PlattForm.

“Controlled chaos is the best way to describe when I am at work,” Kuzma said. Kevin feels that the ‘office rhythm’ comes to him by the end of the week. “On Monday, I am still trying to find the beat but by Friday, I know I have it down.” He says that you don’t have typical days but typical weeks. His work week usually consists of meetings, writing when he has the time and joking around with his team. Sounds like a great work week to me!

Kevin was brought in 3 years ago to our Public Relations department. Since then he has had his hand in the writing jar. Whether he is writing press releases to articles for Career College Central or KEY magazines, Kevin is always engaging in some form of writing. I guess you could say that writing is a passion of Kevin’s. Ever since he wrote a story about Michael Jackson’s Thriller album in the second grade, (yes, I just showed how old you are) he was intrigued.

Kevin is an essential cog in PlattForm’s wheel. As Manager of the Pubic Relations and Publications department, Kevin has many different jobs. He serves as editor to Career College Central and KEY magazines. He is responsible for a team of people to forward PlattForm’s image to the public on both national and industry-specific media outlets. He is in charge of establishing a variety of public relations services to be sold to clients. He develops the costs for new offerings, sales collateral, internal documentation and tracking processes. Wow, that is a lot! That is why Kevin is so vital to us here at PlattForm.

All in all, Kevin is an important part of the controlled chaos that makes PlattForm great. And like a great jazz musician, Kevin knows how to go with the flow. Maybe that’s why he fits in so well as writer extraordinaire, mentor and friend.

Receptionist. Media Buyer/Analyst. Account Coordinator. Marketing Consultant. Senior Marketing Consultant. Account Services Director. Director of New Business Development.

If you’re thinking this is a list of almost every position at PlattForm, you’re right. But, if you look at this list and think, “titles held by Bridget Duffy,” you’d be righter.

When she began her career at PlattForm more than six years ago, she was hired as a Receptionist. That lasted three days. Since it doesn’t take anyone long to figure out that Bridget knows how to talk the talk, she was quickly transferred to see if she could walk the walk as a Media Buyer/Analyst.

Since then, she’s been walking the walk up the ladder of PlattForm positions with the agility of a mountain cat. Despite the fact that she’s constantly in need of new business cards, one of her titles has stuck. Unfortunately, we’re not at liberty to disclose this one – suffice it to say they don’t make a card for it.

In this role, she’s armed with a pen and pad of paper, patrolling each office the day before a client visit. Her keen attention to detail doesn’t just help her in Sales, it also allows her to take note of each fugitive crumb and distasteful trace of dust. Basically, she keeps a few sloppy PlattFormers from embarrassing themselves.

“You’d be amazed at how slovenly some people are around here,” said Duffy. “You’d think creativity and cleanliness were mutually exclusive events.”

In her current (formal) position as Director of New Business Development, Bridget concentrates most of her energy on the agency’s recent business venture, Career College Central magazine – something she feels very passionately about.

“Working on C3, as I like to call it, is great,” said Duffy. “I thrive on new challenges, and this project has been has been an altogether rewarding experience.”

She knows the ins-and-outs of PlattForm like Muhammed Ali knew the inside of the boxing ring. Maybe that’s why, when it comes to holding titles, Bridget is one of PlattForm’s reigning champions.

It’s amazing to see how the lessons we all learned as children on the playground can reward us later in life.

For Monica Caldwell, a Senior Proofreader at PlattForm, the lesson that paid off the most for her was learning how to make friends. She said that making friends at work is what has helped her succeed at PlattForm.

“It’s a lot easier to have a positive outlook when everyone around you is a friend,” Monica said.

As a Proofreader, Monica interacts with almost every department at PlattForm, giving her plenty of opportunities to make new friends. She’s responsible for making sure all sorts of projects are error-free, such as web sites, print ads, O-Cycles, direct mail pieces, press releases, Search4 pages, collateral, and television and radio spots … just to name a few. To some people, checking all of those projects for proper grammar and spelling might seem tedious, but it’s something Monica truly enjoys. She said her favorite projects to proofread are the articles for PlattForm’s employee newsletter, Podium, as well as the Public Relations department’s Neighborhood News press releases.

Friends aren’t the only thing that make work rewarding for Monica. Her desire to succeed also makes showing up for work every morning a lot more fun.

“I think it’s very important to put a lot of ambition and initiative into what I do,” she said. “It gives me a much greater sense of accomplishment.”