Meet our people.
If you're an Emma customer, it's very likely you've gotten to know one or more of the people pictured here. Perhaps you've met several of them. Perhaps you know one person quite well but have only spoken briefly with two others. Here's your chance to put a face with a name, or two names with two faces, and so on and so forth.
Eric Carroll
Eric is part of Emma's People Development team, lending his efforts to a variety of projects and teams around the house. Also, he likes plaid. And cinnamon. A graduate of Belmont University, Eric grew up in an entrepreneurial household and plans to follow in those entrepreneurial-y footsteps, which we're told are roughly size 12's. A native of Indianapolis, Eric is fresh out of college but already planning for a future that involves his lovely fiance-soon-to-be-wife Melissa and their future five children, each of whom will have the same name spelled differently. Can you tell Tod, Todd, Toddd, todD and TOD that dinner's ready? Thanks. Eric is a happy-far-earlier-in-the-morning-than-seems-possible colleague who geeks out on the business section of the Wall Street Journal and Entrepreneur Magazine. And around the office, he's known as the Jive Master, a moniker that has more to do with the fact that he manages collaboration software called Jive and less to do with his late-'70s dance moves / fashion choices. We'll work on that.
Hernán Ciudad
Hernán is a member of our product development team, having moved to Emma - and the Nashville office - from the D.C. area after stints in New York, New Mexico, Arizona, California and Missouri. While in D.C., Hernán once lived in a Capitol Hill group house known as “The Cave.” Al Gore was once personally invited to one of The Cave’s house parties but was unable to attend due to a prior engagement. Lots of people who are invited to The Cave, it turns out, discover they have prior engagements. Hernán also helped set a certain billionaire senator up with Internet at home and taught him how to surf. Turns out billionaires connect to the Internet just like you and me, unless you still use dial-up, in which you can probably forget the “you” part of that. Hernán’s previous work includes projects for Daon, Accenture, and the U.S. Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, all of whose members reportedly have prior engagements on any and all potential Cave party dates through 2040. Hernán graduated from the University of Missouri - Columbia with a political science degree. His favorite band is the Pet Shop Boys. There really was no place to fit that last sentence in sooner.
Patrick Copeland
Patrick is a part of our sales team, quick to showcase Emma to people who inquire about our services. Other things Patrick is quick to do? Be really nice to people. “You can do this,” he might say to someone who needs a bit of encouragement. If that doesn’t do the trick, he might follow his words with action, in the form of the High Five, the Low Five, or the sure-fire Knuckle Five. Need a pat on the back or a hug that fits within the scope of acceptable co-worker hugs as outlined quite clearly on page 123 of the company handbook? Patrick’s your man. Before joining Emma, Patrick worked as an account executive with the Nashville Speakers Bureau after stints at Stewart, Estes & Donnell and Universal Music Group. He is a graduate of Samford University in Birmingham.
Cliff Corr
Cliff helps guide Emma's brand and marketing efforts through his work with calendars, ad buys, brochures, sticky label thingies, envelopes onto which the sticky label thingies go, special sealer tools for the envelopes, and landscaping. A University of Georgia graduate, Cliff was born too late to really appreciate much of Jeff Lynne's work (think ELO, or think Tom Petty, or, if you must, think Grease soundtrack), yet, with the proper wig and glasses, Cliff is Jeff Lynne - a fact which will come in quite handy should Emma’s ELO tribute band ever get off the ground. Incidentally, launching an ELO tribute band isn’t nearly as easy as one might think. Stupid drummers.
Casey Correll
Casey Correll, part of our customer support team, is also known as Boy Casey. It's a distinction that's only necessary to eliminate inter-office confusion between him and fellow Emma staffer -- and girl -- Casey McCormick. The Casey currently under discussion joined Emma after five years of customer service experience at Aspect Software. Thing is, Girl Casey also worked at the same company. Boy Casey is a member of his neighborhood wine club, which is all well and non-freaky until you learn, and you're about to, that Girl Casey is also a member of both the same neighborhood and wine club. Lest we all start to wonder which Casey this paragraph really belongs to, it seems like a good time to list an array of Boy-Casey-only facts: he once made a giant cookie cake of Richard Nixon's face, he knows every word to Loretta Lynn's "Coal Miner's Daughter" and his favorite television show is Little House on the Prairie. Moral of the story? If you're ever confused about which Casey you're emailing, just see what happens if you defame Michael Landon.
Frank Cuden
Frank can do the worm, which is a skill that doesn't come in as handy as you might think. He works on our agency sales team, and, no, he doesn't mind at all that he shares a name with Frank the Tank in Will Ferrell's Old School. You'd think people would throw more Old School references his way, really. Before joining Emma, Frank got a degree in Music Business from Belmont University, where he may or may not have acted out several Old School-style scenes. So if you thought the Old School references were over, think again. Actually, we're done now. Frank went on to drumming greatness, opening on tour for bands like the Foo Fighters and Rascal Flatts. If you're ever lucky enough to meet Frank, you'll be tempted to ask him what that was like — or what it was like to play drums on "The Tonight Show with Jay Leno." Instead, you should just mention the phrase "complimentary hotel room toiletries" and see where the conversation goes. You won't be disappointed.
Cody De Vos
Cody is a member of our agency relations team and holds a degree in English from Middle Tennessee State University and studied Film at Columbia College in Chicago. He’s co-written and co-starred in his own film, Make-Out with Violence (check it out at www.makeoutwithviolence.com), which was selected as an official entry in the SXSW Film Festival and generally better received than his much earlier work, Make-Out with Joan Rivers. Cody’s interesting and varied resume includes stints as a carriage driver in Chicago (his favorite city, and who can blame him except perhaps Toledo), a tour guide for Nashville’s Ghost Tours, and a freelance writer for the Nashville Scene. Along similar out-of-the-box-occupational-lines, our friend Cody has also been a security guard, a knife salesman, a substitute teacher, and a cart pusher at Wal-Mart. Oh, and he loves the Ramones. Again, who can blame him? (Pipe down, Toledo.)
Alex Ezell
Alex leads our software development group. Born and raised in Albany, Georgia (much like a certain Emma co-founder, which explains why Albany, Georgia will now be mentioned a second time for no discernable reason), Alex was the last of five kids and attended boarding school (Darlington) en route to college (University of Georgia). Prior to joining Emma, Alex taught high school English and worked as a software developer for the company Fylmz. Also, it’s possible Alex is an actual, real-life fan of Hootie & the Blowfish. Says Alex, “You make one concession for Darius Rucker and the next thing you know, a youthful dalliance becomes Google fodder.” Albany, Georgia, has no comment on the matter.
Sam Farkas
Sam is a member of our small business sales team, having joined us after stints at Compass Records, a campus radio station (that’d be WMTS 88.3 if you’re in the local listening area), and the fabulous restaurant Flyte, where Sam tended bar. A recording industry major, Sam won a writing award at MTSU - that’s first place, folks - and is a fan of, in no particular order, The Big Lebowski, Zappos.com, Mr. Show, The Onion, Nashville Cream, and NPR. Actually, that turned out to be in exactly the right order. Sam Farkas is a talented guitarist - not to be confused with Sam Farkas, a talented guitarist with faster domain registration skills - and has played in a band called Casio Casanova, which Sam Farkas swears is like ten times better than any band the other Sam Farkas has played in. We’re sensing a little URL envy, yes we are.
Megan Feltes
Megan is part of our content team, having joined us after stints at Lucky Brand Jeans and The Band Hall, a supplier of band and color guard uniforms. Remember that one time at band camp? It’s possible they were wearing uniforms designed by Megan, who herself marched as a proud member of the Blue Knights (in Colorado, her home state) and Chimeras (Nashville) and continues to teach dance and judge color guard competitions. In Megan’s words, “I may be a nerd, but I have unlimited access to sequins and rhinestones, so I’m a sparkly nerd.” Our sparkly nerdish friend is told she looks like Lindsay Lohan, but thankfully she has a knack for avoiding jail time more like, say, a Julianne Moore. A graduate of MTSU, Megan majored in political science with a pre-law cognate, which, we’re fairly certain, is some sort of weaver’s loom.