Jobs Landed

Hi! My name is Amity, and I am the owner/designer of Marbella Couture. I have to say that I just absolutely LOVE my job. The endless amount of creativity, the joy that I get to see in women at the most special time in their life, and making people happy is my passion and my own joy in life. I love what I do because what I do is make bride's happy by working with them to design their dream-wedding gown. I love the happiness that brides get when they show me four pictures of gowns that they have tried on or found in magazines (and love one aspect of each dress) and tell me to put all of those aspects into their dream-wedding gown. I genuinely love the expression on their face when I say, "OK! Let's DO IT!" and they smile from ear to ear because what they want can actually be done. I am a friendly, caring, honest person, friend, and designer. It is my joy in life to create, especially create Wedding Gowns. So if you are engaged and want a Wedding Gown that only you will wear in this lifetime, please give me a call or shoot me an email- I would LOVE to work with you!

How did I get started? My husband is actually the one who gave me the idea to start my own business.  We were living in Chicago at the time and got engaged in Chicago.  When I was thinking about where I as going to buy my wedding gown he said, “Why don’t you just make it?”  It never crossed my mind to make my own wedding gown.  Along with my own wedding gown, I ended up making 13 other dresses for my own wedding, 9 bridesmaids, 3 flower girls, and a rehearsal dinner dress.  I thought to myself if I can do all of this while planning my own wedding and working full time, I could own my own company! When I graduated from college, my husband took me to Spain and we traveled all over the country.  We went to the most beautiful city on the Mediterranean in the southern part of Spain, called Marbella.  I will never forget that beautiful, romantic place and that’s why I named my company after it!

I design for web and print. I strive to create usable websites that are emotionally driven and inspired.

As a National Account Manager, my role is to represent my client and their needs within my company. I am dedicated to one large account, and I am their first point of contact from a commercial standpoint. I love this client interaction, as it requires me to use my emotional intelligence as well as my technical understanding to link the various departments, both within Amcor and between Amcor and my client. Dealing with the procurement department or engaging the engineering department requires different methods than interacting with the marketing department, and I love this plurality in my role. Internally, I am also responsible for managing my account, driving profitability, and ensuring customer satisfaction. In addition to being a NAM, I am part of Amcor’s competitive Commercial Leadership Development Program (CLDP).

I chose to join Amcor because of their CLDP, the career opportunities it presents, and because of the terrific people who work there. I am part of a team that is absolutely awesome, and part of a company that is dedicated to lead its industry.

Food First by Jennifer is a company that specializes in educating people on how to optimize energy and prevent disease. It is designed to teach people the healing properties of food and empower them to make simple changes to improve their health and lives.

After graduating from Michigan State University, I had a continuum of health issues that compromised my quality of life. It wasn’t until I took a natural approach that my health dramatically improved.

I speak to companies, associations and do one-on-one consultations with individuals educating them on the “food first” philosophy.

I am so excited to be apart of the Ann Arbor Community. It is an amazing area filled with so many different people, and a lot of them are as passionate about their Health as I am! I believe that being a great doctor isn't about how much we talk to our patients, but how much we listen. You can learn so much if you would ask questions and listen to the answers. I have believed that all my life and find that it is what works best in a Doctor - Patient relationship. As a doctor of chiropractic I am dedicated to helping people live pain free, and providing them with the tools to help them create a better life everyday through health and wellness.

Chiropractic is not just a medicine to help those in pain, but it is a preventative to your future health! I look forward to helping my neighbors get on the track to a healthy life, and pain free life, and become an integral part of the Ann Arbor Community and Family's!

As Content Coordinator at Ingenex, I am developing and implementing new online content. I work to expand the social media presence for the Internet marketing firm and its clients. Additionally, I help drive the strategic direction and create up-to-the-minute, relevant content for HashtagsForLife, Internet inspiration in the form of #hashtags brought to you by Ingenex Digital Marketing.

As Project Coordinator at Ingenex Digital, I am in charge of making sure all projects are kept moving forward in a timely and organized manner, keeping clients updated on a continual basis. I work directly with clients to promote long-term relationships and ensure customer satisfaction, while networking with prospects to establish new business.

I also assist in organizing events and volunteers for LA2M, a 501c3 educational marketing non-profit dedicated to keeping professionals updated on the latest ideas and appeal in the marketing world. I help create a weekly newsletter sent to members, while organizing speakers for each presentation. Furthermore, I pitch in with content creation for Ingenex, writing press releases and articles when necessary.

They say journalism is no longer a field for finding your dream gig. They're wrong. I was recently hired by MLive.com, Michigan's largest news website (supporting the state's stable of Booth Newspaper titles), to cover arts and entertainment in Metro Detroit. While most MLive.com sites work in concert with a local newspaper, MLive Detroit is a different kind of idea -- providing round-the-clock news coverage without an accompanying print publication.

I function as the Detroit entertainment section's blogger, editor and photographer all-in-one (with the help of my supremely awesome news teammates, from whom I'm learning tons of cool stuff). I focus on Michigan artists, local events, trends in dining and living, and riffs on the local media. At any given time, you might find me posting a new video, shooting photographs of a touring artist downtown, covering a hearing for a local business, or sounding off my opinions -- often, all in the same day.

I probably wasn't ever on MLive's radar for candidates, until I wrote the editor-in-chief an incredibly impassioned letter about what I would do if I had the entertainment beat for his website. It took a while, but he remembered it and emailed me when a position became available. My advice? When you want a job, don't just talk about your resume. Tell them your ideas. That's what they're hiring you for, anyway.

I came to Michigan in July, 2011 to start a position as an Assistant Professor of Medical Education in the Department of Medical Education at the Unviersity of Michigan. In my role as an Assistant Professor, I conduct community-based diabetes research, which focuses on improving health systems and health care delivery for people with diabetes and cardiovascular disease; understanding the behavioral and psychological aspects of diabetes prevention and management; and developing and implementing diabetes and cardiovascular disease prevention and treatment interventions in the community. I contribute to numerous diabetes research studies and author diabetes publications. I routinely present my research and national and international diabetes conferences and serve on local, state, national, and international diabetes committees.

I knew a career in the graphic design field was in my future from a very young age. With a drawing pad always nearby, I would sketch anything that grabbed my eye. Later, during high school, I channeled this love for art into a small business designing t-shirts for student groups and athletic teams. This led me to attend the University of Michigan School of Art & Design to get a better understanding of graphic design theory and how I could use it to help people communicate their ideas. During school, I started my own freelance graphic design shop and began to take on several side jobs (whenever pesky homework didn’t get in the way) including a logo design for an airline and a website for a local life science company. Being a freelance graphic designer has allowed me to learn about so many interesting industries and meet some very inspiring entrepreneurs. It has also helped me to improve my graphic and web design skill sets at a much faster pace than when I was just working with one client.

I am a co-founder and the President of Practical EHR Solutions, LLC (Pehr), a software developer and service provider that helps physicians increase productivity and profitability.  Pehr is developing software that will educate and guide healthcare professionals through the implementation of 44 best practice initiatives, most of which are the result of the constantly changing regulatory environment in healthcare and the increasing technical skill set needed for compliance. While the software is in development, Pehr is focusing on providing Electronic Health Record implementation services directly to physician practices. My most previous job was as the Chief Operating Officer of a 50 physician multispecialty group where she and the other Pehr co-founders developed an implementation methodology that allows physicians to achieve a positive return on their EHR investment.
 
Along with my team, I launched the organization in January 2011 in Ann Arbor, feeling there is no better place for a healthcare IT start-up organization.

As the Site Coordinator for Eastern Michigan University's 21st Century Collaborative Learning Community, I coordinate an after-school program at Wayne Memorial High School.  The program provides a wide variety of after-school programs for high school students.  We have academic programs and fun programs based on student interest, including an online reading fluency program, homework help, cake decorating and drop-in football.  We see between 25 and 70 students per day.  It's a new program--it is my job to develop the program, hire and train staff, recruit students, and run the daily program.  I used to teach high school math, but I prefer working with students out of the classroom, so this is a good fit for me.

I work with an amazing group of people to develop what we call smart websites.  I work directly with the client for the life span of their project.

We program in WordPress and directly integrated most of our sites with social media, newsletter outlets, etc.  Basically we work with our clients to expand their web reach and cut down the time that they spend on the computer by giving by giving them efficient tools.  It's usually a requirement that we have some fun too!

We're on the outskirts of cool Kerrytown in Ann Arbor if you want to pop in and say hi!

Fundraising focused gal, working for an Ypsilanti-based non-profit with the goal to improve people's lives and communities through gardening and healthy food access. To parallel - and ratchet up a notch! - our healthy food focus, I'm taking on the personal challenge of healthy BODY by running the NYC Marathon to raise awareness (and funds) around the fact that it's not just the food you put into your body that's important, but what you do with your body to get it moving.

I'm whole-heartedly committed to creating healthy lives for people, with a focus on youth, and constantly amazed by the powerful forward movement of Southeast Michigan!  Detroit, and the surrounding area, is being dubbed the 'Wild West of Creativity' and I am super thankful to be a part of the energy swirling around.

At the University of Michigan Medical School, I am just starting to do stroke research and am in the process of creating my own project.