Featured Speakers
Rich Kizer and Georganne Bender have earned the reputation as the go-to experts in retail. As speakers, authors, and consultants they have helped thousands of businesses in the retail, creative, restaurant, healthcare, deathcare, hospitality, pet, collegiate, travel, beauty, tech, auto, sales, and service industries achieve success since 1990.
Best known as store makeover specialists, KIZER & BENDER are listed among the Top 40 Omnichannel Retail Influencers, Top 100 Global Retail Influencers, and the Top Retail Industry Experts to Follow on Social Media. They made Meetings & Conventions magazine’s list of Meeting Planners Favorite Keynote Speakers, were named two of Retailing’s Most Influential People, and their award-winning Retail Adventures Blog consistently ranks high on the list of must-read retail and marketing blogs. As global retail thought leaders, KIZER & BENDER serve as BrainTrust panelists for RetailWire, retailing’s premier daily online discussion forum.
Rich and Georganne are experts on generational diversity, consumer trends, marketing and promotion, and everything retail. As consumer anthropologists they stalk and study that most elusive of mammals, today’s consumer. In addition to yearly focus groups, one-on-one interviews, and intensive on-site studies, their research includes posing as every kind of customer you can imagine. The result of their research is literally straight from the mouth of the consumer: solid, ground-level intelligence you can use to better serve your own customers.
Crystal Vilkaitis is a world-class social media expert and powerful speaker who helps retailers shine online and bring their unique brilliance to the local and global masses. Fueling retailers with confidence to grow their visibility and results, Crystal is on a mission to help Main Street businesses thrive. She founded Crystal Media in 2012, where she’s worked with thousands of retailers to increase traffic, sales, and profits using social media. She’s shared the stage with industry giants like Martha Stewart, Gary Vaynerchuk, Bethenny Frankel, and Jim Kwik, and hosts the show Rooted in Retail, covering retail-centric topics like marketing, money, mindset, and more. To learn more visit www.crystalmediaco.com and follow on Instagram at @crystalmediaco.
Ammie Williams is an artist living in Atlanta, Georgia. She has a BFA in art education and loves teaching and helping people create something they didn’t think they could. She has spent the last decade working in the PYOP industry and has designed a line of bisque, silkscreens, and stickers with Bisque Imports, with more amazing products in the works. She has built and fostered an extremely dedicated Instagram audience who love following her life and work through daily updates. The same audience often breaks her website trying to buy finished ceramic pieces. On the rare occasions that she’s not posting on Instagram, she enjoys reading with a beer, watching Real Housewives, or playing cards.
After doing an “inner child” visualization exercise at some woo-woo conference years ago, Emelie Sanders finally committed to opening a mobile PYOP studio. But with 6+ years of web design under her belt, she couldn’t shake the excitement to dig deep into the community and exclusively design websites for studio owners. She quickly learned the ceramic industry is unlike any other, which is why you need a studio-specific approach to your web design and content. Emelie is on a mission to ensure that every studio owner feels like their website is kiln it!
Erica Gillman has worked in PYOP for almost 10 years, and owned her studio for the past 5 years. Beginning in a storefront, she switched to a mobile business model during the COVID lockdown so she has experienced both aspects of running a studio. As a young studio owner, she has been able to take tried-and-true PYOP practices and blend them with contemporary ideas to adapt her studio to the changing tides.
Jackie Burrow and Gail Schomisch love to spread the joy of PYOP and now focus entirely on large-scale event work. Jackie hails from Texas and Gail is from Wisconsin. This married couple, together for 32 years, have owned their studio in Las Vegas since 1998. Jackie maintains the accounting and customer relations while Gail oversees event production and supervises staff at the studio and entertains guests there by appointment. Jackie ‒ “the fun one” ‒ charms clients with her Texas accent and a gift for making everyone feel at ease. Gail is known as “the color girl” and, as a graphic designer in her previous life, brings projects to life for events and designs all their marketing material. Their biggest personal mark of success is their ability to say that, even after 25 years, they wake up each day with a song in their heart and a spring in their step for their take on PYOP.
Jacqui Hauser owns The Studio for Art and Craft in Cobleskill, New York. She was a Girl Scout as a child and led a troop for 13 years. As a Girl Scout adult volunteer, she is active in her council and has utilized that experience to modify her approach to offering Girl Scout badges through her studio that are successful for everyone involved – the studio, the girls, and the leaders.
Jamie McCabe started Clay Café in 2008 and moved to a location three times bigger in 2018 to expand the studio’s services ‒ grow big or go home! She created a successful offsite after-school program that generated $10,000 extra in offsite income. She loves helping others grow and see their true creative entrepreneurial potential!
Jeff Rottman is the owner of GR Pottery Forms, which he founded in 2014. He was a production potter and the owner of Grand Rapids Pottery from 2005 to 2016. He holds a BS in business and marketing from New Mexico State University.
Kathy Cano-Murillo is a professional hyper-creative and founder of Crafty Chica.com. She is a former syndicated newspaper columnist and now a full-time creativepreneur, which has led to multiple Crafty Chica product lines, and collabs with national brands. Features include Forbes, the New York Times, Buzzfeed, and more. She lives in Phoenix, Arizona, and ceramics is her heart’s passion.
Lindsey Hutchins has been passionate about art since childhood. She entered the PYOP industry in 2012 and is grateful to have a career where she can be creative and share her designs with others! She loves to challenge herself to think outside the box and incorporate a twist of personality in her designs. As the Marketing Team Lead for Bisque Imports, she loves teaching and creating fabulous content for BITV.
Louise Blazucki is a pottery studio owner in central Indiana. She purchased her studio in 2018 and has seen exponential growth even through global challenges by learning to adapt and shift quickly. She is happy to impart her wisdom about large events for a modern business.
Michael Harbridge has been an instructor in the arts industry for over 40 years and has owned pottery studios. He is known for his creative methods he develops in his Wisconsin studio and shares with the industry. He was the educational arts manager for Royal & Langnickel Brush Manufacturing for over 15 years, where he taught dozens of brush-related workshops annually.
Michele Muzones is a professional artist and illustrator who opened her own mobile business, Art Rave Inc, in 2012. For 10 years she has taught thousands of in-person painting classes using only the art she designed herself. She now designs for her online painting membership, video kits, and some in-person classes through Art Rave Inc, and also shares her designs through licensing. Art Rave Studios is a membership that allows other studios to share in the success of her designs through licensing. Now dozens of studios across the US and Canada are experiencing massive success offering her painting designs in their classes.
Mike Sievers has been the Director of Marketing at Skutt for nearly 30 years. His passion is helping ceramic artists and business owners all over the world truly understand their kilns and use them to their utmost potential.
Nancy is a CCSA supplier and a studio owner. She has a love for all things creative, including doing displays. Nancy has successfully trained many studios how to take their displays to the next level. When she is not designing and making silkscreens, coming up with new projects and samples, and working in her quaint studio (seats only 20!), you can find her hanging with her family, watching her grandkids, or spending time at the lake.
Nell Wertz has been a CCSA member for 18 years, owning All Fired Up Akron in Akron, Ohio. She now also owns For Art Sake Stickers, a CCSA supplier of artsy, studio-themed stickers, stationery, and more. Her studio has offered a variety of mediums on a walk-in basis for over 15 years. She loves to share ways to amp up your profits!
First and foremost, Julie and Robin Cates are studio owners. They opened On the Pot in 2002 in the smallish town of Salina, Kansas. As sisters raised in a mom-and-pop business, they learned early on how to be small business owners while growing up in Mom and Dad’s restaurant. Julie takes care of the creative stuff, and Robin handles the business part of the business. They have been teaching classes and creating projects to share with the CCSA for 20 years. They also work with their friend Teresa Johnson and her business PYOP Studio Stuff to create screen prints. Mostly, they just like to have fun and hope you’ll come have fun with them!
Ruth Post has brought the joy of working with clay to thousands of children and adults over her 35-year career as an art teacher. She is a product designer for the Activa Co., founder of the clay subscription boxes The Clay Box and The Handmade Potter, and is a contributing FLEX curriculum writer for The Art of Education University. She is an MFA-certified K‒12 Art Educator with a BFA in fine art.
Stacey opened her studio, Art on the Rocks, in 2012, and now has two studio locations. By adding value to every class and event, she has hosted more than 50,000 guests. Stacey has taught for Gare, Diverse Woodworking, and PBS and is also a certified Bob Ross instructor. She has a BFA in art education.
Mary Ann O'Hearn/ The Boston Potta' has been the talented resident artist and instructor at Gare for over 25 years. She has been part of the ceramic Industry for many years having run her own successful PYOP studio for 3 years. Mary Ann has an upbeat personality and if you've ever taken a class with her, you know she is a fan of fun and laughter. In addition to PYOP, Mary Ann worked for Century Reproduction, hand painting & retouching porcelain collectible figurines. She also taught canvas classes, Glass fusing and other multi-media art - she's done it all. Mary Ann is unique in that she has a very extensive bandwidth and versatile look to her work. She can achieve designs for kids camps and projects as well as an elevated/ upscale project for adults. Mary Ann continually teaches pottery painting and techniques at workshops.
Jaime Prohaska is the Director of Marketing at Gare. Jaime studied at Montserrat College of Art in Massachusetts and then went on to earn her BFA in Fine Art/ Graphic Design from UMass.
Jaime has over 20 years of Marketing & Design experience. Before joining Gare, Jaime was the Creative Services Manager for 1A Auto in Massachusetts, where she helped spearhead their 2019 influencer marketing/ partnership with Nascar driver Spencer Boyd. In addition, she created and launched their first ever radio campaign, podcast and along with her team, created and rolled out their new "You Can Count on You" campaign - inspiring and empowering customers to do their own auto repairs. Before that, Jaime was a design editor at Marketing by Design, working in their Home Depot division on brands such as Hampton Bay, Vigaro, Husky and Commercial Electric.
In addition, Jaime has done freelance wedding and portrait photography, video editing for clients such as BJ’s and United Airlines as well her most recent venture, a monetized YouTube channel. Jaime is passionate about marketing and design and enjoys helping & inspiring others up their marketing game.
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Creative Portfolio 👉www.jaimeprohaska.com
Susan Rogers is the VP of Sales at Gare Inc, as well as one of the owners. After graduating from Hobart and William Smith Colleges in 1992 with a BS in political science, she entered the buying program for Abraham and Strauss with aspirations of being a retail buyer. After completing the program, her brothers recruited her to join Gare, the family business. Through her 29 years at Gare, she has held various positions in marketing and sales, helping her to better understand the needs of studio owners. She has personally visited several hundred PYOPs, which has helped her learn all about the wants, needs, and frustrations of studio owners. Her passion is helping studios become more profitable by educating them on inventory control, helping open new studios, and helping studios introduce new programs so they can reach higher sales levels.
Tammy Gacek is our NEW Assistant Staff Artist here at Gare! Tammy is an established artist and comes to us with over 30 years of ceramics experience! Early in her career, Tammy worked for Century Reproduction, hand painting & retouching porcelain collectible figurines. Her portfolio includes large in-house wall murals, ceramics and canvas classes. Not only is she a seasoned ceramic artist, but she taught pre-school for many years and enjoyed sharing her love of the arts with her students. She enjoyed using art therapy skills her classroom daily to allow her students to express themselves through their projects. Tammy loves spreading joy with her art. She is a firm believer in uplifting & encouraging others to be positive and inspirational. In addition to her upbeat/ positive vibe, Tammy also enjoyed working in the PYOP industry for over 17 years.
Susan Bucci is the owner of Painted Peacock, a paint-your-own pottery studio, and Peacock Prints & Clay, an online handprint boutique. With over 14 years in the industry, Susan believes in setting a strong foundation in business through understanding core values, implementing systems, and taking care of your employees. Susan lives in Greenville, North Carolina, with her husband, daughter, and the sweetest pup. When she isn’t in the studio for work, she’s in there playing with clay, playing at the park, or baking up some treats.
Bre Kathman is the general manager of Chesapeake Ceramics. With a BA in art and education and an MA in ceramics, she has spent the last 20 years showing people how cool ceramics can be! Bre's bread and butter is exploring and sharing the science behind how and why things work. When she isn’t making or teaching ceramics, she’s lifting weights, petting puppies, or cycling around Maryland.
Carole Assadi has been in the accounting and finance field for 15 years, including 8 years focused in franchising and the paint-your-own pottery industry. She is the Director of Finance and Controller at Color Me Mine.
Jenny Muller has been in small business management, accounting, and operations for over 30 years. Jenny also owned and operated a paint and sip studio for 12 years and recently sold it. She is in business development for Color Me Mine and wants to share her years of knowledge breaking down studio numbers with you!
Teresa Johnson has been in the paint-your-own pottery industry for 18 years as a studio owner with multiple locations, a supplier company (PYOP Studio Stuff), and now as a co-owner of Color Me Mine.
Kelley Copelin has been in small business herself, and has worked with entrepreneurs for 20 years. She has been on teams supporting start-ups, working with independent owners as well as franchise systems. She has helped owners navigate the process of opening new businesses for many years. Kelley manages business development for Color Me Mine.
Jenny Muller has been in small business management, accounting, and operations for over 30 years. Jenny also owned and operated a paint and sip studio for 12 years and recently sold it. She is in business development for Color Me Mine and wants to share her years of knowledge breaking down studio numbers with you!
Teresa Johnson has been in the paint-your-own pottery industry for 18 years as a studio owner with multiple locations, a supplier company (PYOP Studio Stuff), and now as a co-owner of Color Me Mine.
Wendy Pettys has owned The Pottery Patch in Valrico, Florida, for almost 21 years. She loves the creative aspects of her studio, but her favorite part is the marketing! After all these years, she still enjoys her studio, but the true loves of her life are her family: her wonderful great husband of 31 years; two awesome kids, Taylor and Justin; and two fur babies, Bobo and Ticky.
Brittney Ackley is the CCSA’s membership/marketing specialist. She has worked with the CCSA for two years, engaging with members, growing the membership, and creating valuable resources for members. She has also been in the PYOP industry for over 16 years, managing PYOP studios. While she is not at work, she enjoys spending time with her husband and two little boys in sunny Jacksonville, Florida, where she resides.