Press Release
A Long Ten-Year Journey Concludes As Another Adventure Begins
Nicole Shive, senior marketing student in the Marketing Program of the College of Business and Economics at Western Washington University, finishes what she started eleven years ago. Nicole started her first quarter at Western Washington University in two thousand eleven, and after her final quarter ends in December 2022 she will finally take her steps across the stage to turn the tassel on her cap.
Nicole, like many students, struggled at age eighteen to find their direction. She was fortunate however. When she was a sophomore in high school she found a love of design and was trained to use the Adobe Creative Suite to design pages for the high school year book by teacher Gene Koffkin. Nicole’s work ethic lifted her up ranks in junior year of high school becoming the assistant editor-in-chief, and again in senior year when she became the editor-in-chief. As her keen eye for design improved, so did her leadership abilities.
When she arrived at Western in 2011, she decided to take Journalism classes in hopes that she could apply her design skillset to specialize in publication design in the future. While her writing skills certainly improved, she felt that something was missing both creatively and personally. She felt lost, stuck and hopeless which turned into depression. She ended up leaving Western in fall of 2013.
Nicole’s mother, Wendy Fjelsted, inspired her to get back on her feet. Wendy challenged her to aim higher, to be independent and find her direction. Wendy’s support and belief in her daughter’s ability provided Nicole with the strength she needed to try again. Nicole enrolled at Whatcom Community College that winter in pursuit of a certificate in Visual Communications while working at restaurants in downtown Bellingham to pay the bills.
Nicole enjoyed the prerequisite art and drawing classes, but once she started the Visual Communications program, she felt frustrated that she still was not learning what she wanted to know. She left WCC and volunteered to design for the 2014 Whidbey Island Garden tour, creating a logo and designing layouts for promotional materials.
By May 2015, Nicole decided to seek a design job where she could apply her skills and grow professionally. Unfortunately, hardly any companies wanted to hire a designer without credentials. However Shauna Naf, CEO of The Lones Group Inc. appreciated Nicole’s enthusiasm and confidence and gave her a shot, which changed Nicole’s life forever.
While very skilled with InDesign for publication work, Nicole knew very little about how to use Photoshop and Illustrator to create client brand designs. Shauna encouraged Nicole to self-teach, and with guidance from the team Nicole grew mastery of these essential designer tools. After one year, Nicole’s manager resigned, and she became the director of the design department. Every day Nicole’s design abilities grew, and she learned how to communicate with clients and ask the right questions to lead her team to build brands that clients loved.
Five years later, the pandemic began. Nicole had reached the highest position she could at the Lones Group and felt that her professional growth had halted. She applied to several jobs, but despite her professional experience, no company was interested in hiring her. Nicole wanted to learn how to blend her love of design with financial data and other metrics to analytically prove her value as a designer. Nicole knew it was time to return to WWU, and with the support of her parents and husband, she did just that.
Nicole reapplied to WWU in summer of 2019 with a clear direction: she would pursue marketing to achieve her goal of learning how to acquire and evaluate data. She took classes from calculus to economics, studying world problems, biology, and in her senior year she was finally able to focus solely on marketing. During her marketing research class she knew she was in the right place. Her focus remained on analytics with an emphasis in design.
Once again, someone invested their time in her future. Dan Purdy taught Nicole practical research and integrated marketing techniques, which took her learning a step beyond the business theory she learned in other classes. She learned processes for marketing research, analyzing data, collaborating in efficient teams through Agile, and most importantly how to write a creative brief to define and articulate her unique value. Nicole felt unstoppable.
After a long ten-year journey, Nicole is on track for success in her career thanks to Wendy, her father Carl, Gene, Shauna, and Dan who were guideposts in her life when she needed someone to take a chance on her. Nicole’s story reminds us that every person’s path is different. It gives us hope that when we work hard, know when to quit and when to go full steam ahead, and take advantage of every opportunity, we can accomplish more than we ever expected.
Nicole intends to work for a medium-sized marketing firm to support senior analysts in maximizing their clients’ competitive advantage by analyzing and visually organizing data in a way that people can easily understand and act upon. She plans to continue using data to articulate her unique value.
Nicole is expected to graduate this coming winter, on December 10th, 2022. If you would like to congratulate her or are interested in working with her, feel free to send her a message directly through LinkedIn at linkedin.com/in/nicole-shive/ or connecting with her through her website, nicoleshive.com
