Gary Slack

Current

• Chairman at Business Marketing Association
• Chairman & Chief Experience Officer at Slack Barshinger

Past

• Sr. Vice President & General Manager at Doremus & Co./Chicago
• Sr. Vice President, Group Account Director at Porter Novelli
• Vice President, Account Director at Porter Novelli

• Account Manager at Porter Novelli & Associates
• Writer at Porter Novelli & Associates
• Staff Writer at The Santa Fe Reporter
• Summer Camp Counselor at Farm and Wilderness
• Summer Intern at Albuquerque Tribune
• Photographer at Nat Kaplan Homes
• Co-Owner at Arabesque Paper Enterprises
• Garden Boy at Sears, Roebuck and Co.

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Education

• Dartmouth College
• Albuquerque Academy

Recommended

7 people have recommended Gary

Connections

500+ connections

Industry

Marketing and Advertising

Gary Slack’s Summary

I am the founder of Slack Barshinger & Partners, one of the nation's first integrated marketing communications agencies and one of the very few worldwide that works exclusively with business marketers.

I also am the national chairman of the Business Marketing Association, the business marketing profession's leading professional society in the U.S., serving nearly 2,500 members via a 21-chapter network.

Gary Slack’s Specialties:

Integrated business-to-business marketing

Gary Slack’s Experience

• Chairman

  Business Marketing Association

  (Non-Profit; Marketing and Advertising industry)

  June 2009 — Present (6 months)

• Chairman & Chief Experience Officer

  Slack Barshinger

  (Privately Held; Marketing and Advertising industry)

  June 1988 — Present (21 years 6 months)

  I help lead Slack Barshinger, an integrated marketing communications agency singled out by IMC authorities Don and Heidi Schultz as one of four "standout" IMC agencies in the U.S.
  
  With offices in Chicago and Silicon Valley, our 50-person staff works exclusively with business-to-business marketers to build strong business brands and generate profitable demand.
  
  Our principal clients include Aon, ArcelorMittal, Association of Equipment Manufacturers, CCH, Diebold, Dow Corning, Fellowes, Google, National Starch, Nuveen Investments, Office Depot, Research in Motion, Siemens Building Technologies, Tellabs, Underwriters Laboratories and Wildman Harrold.
  
  We also provide pro bono support to Chicago 2016, the Economic Club of Chicago, the Business Marketing Association, the Chicago Innovation Awards and the Chicago Council for Science and Technology.

• Sr. Vice President & General Manager

  Doremus & Co./Chicago

  (Public Company; 11-50 employees; Marketing and Advertising industry)

  September 1986 — June 1988 (1 year 10 months)

  In the fall of 1986, Jack Porter and Bill Novelli (today the CEO of AARP) uncovered an "in the (Omnicom) family" opportunity for me to get early general-manager experience by joining and heading the Chicago office of New York-based Doremus & Company, the financial communications and business-to-business marketing arm of Omnicom.
  
  For 22 months, I helped revitalize the office, attract new clients and increase revenue. Along the way, I led the consolidation of Omnicom agency Fletcher Mayo into the Doremus fold. It was in the GM role at Doremus where I gained the additional business-management experience necessary to even think about breaking away to start my own firm, which I did in June 1988 at the age of 33.

• Sr. Vice President, Group Account Director

  Porter Novelli

  (Public Company; 201-500 employees; Public Relations and Communications industry)

  June 1985 — August 1986 (1 year 3 months)

  In 1985, I was asked by Jack Porter and Bill Novelli to transfer to Chicago and help with the integration of the Public Relations Board, a 30-person PR agency that Porter Novelli had acquired as one of the first steps in its national growth plan under its new owner, Omnicom.
  
  While in Chicago, I helped attract and then lead The NutraSweet Company's business-to-business marketing account, which followed me (thank you, Tom, Kevin and Thym) to Doremus & Company two years later and then to my own agency, Slack Barshinger & Partners, in 1988.

• Vice President, Account Director

  Porter Novelli

  (Public Company; 51-200 employees; Public Relations and Communications industry)

  April 1980 — May 1985 (5 years 2 months)

  After three years in junior and mid-level account-management positions in Porter Novelli's Washington, DC office, Jack Porter and Bill Novelli promoted me to vice president and a member of the firm's board of managers at the age of 27.
  
  While Porter Novelli at this time was known primarily as a social marketing firm, with clients mainly in the federal government, I helped lead the agency's initiative to attract trade association clients, including many in the beverage, packaging, retail and environmental industries.

• Account Manager

  Porter Novelli & Associates

  (Public Company; 11-50 employees; OMC; Public Relations and Communications industry)

  April 1978 — June 1980 (2 years 3 months)

  Expanding into account management, I initially had EPA's now-defunct Office of Noise Abatement and Control, the Can Manufacturers Institute and the National Soft Drink Association as clients.
  
  Despite my age, somewhat long hair and baby-face looks, I was able to develop close relationships with three brilliant but very different association presidents—Dwight Reed of NSDA, Michael Dunn of CMI and Henry Thomas of the EPA..
  
  By now, Porter Novelli was calling itself a PR firm and readying its sale to Needham Harper & Steers, which later morphed with DDB and BBDO into Omnicom. But the firm was really a marketing communications agency with a better creative department than most ad agencies and PR firms.
  
  In these and later years, I was situated in between the likes of Jack Porter, Bill Novelli, Bill Matassoni, Randi Thompson, Terry Baugh and future Porter Novelli global CEO Bob Druckenmiller—pretty heady company and all great mentors and great businesspeople.

• Writer

  Porter Novelli & Associates

  (Privately Held; 11-50 employees; Public Relations and Communications industry)

  April 1977 — March 1978 (1 year )

  While living (and freezing) in Vermont and trying to establish a freelance writing career, I was encouraged by Francis Xavier Slevin, my high school English teacher, to apply for a writing job with a "social marketing" firm in Washington, DC.
  
  Called Porter Novelli & Associaties, the firm was headed by two former Madison Avenue executives who had chucked their commercial marketing careers to run the department of public affairs of the Peace Corps and, in 1972, found their new firm, whose mission was to apply commercial marketing principles to social issues, causes and concerns.
  
  Traveling down to Washington, DC, I met Jack Porter, Bill Novelli, Bob Druckenmiller and Mike Carberry, then the firm's four principals, and took a writing test. Despite sending a thank-you note back to "Mike Porter," I evidently did well enough on the test to be hired.

• Staff Writer

  The Santa Fe Reporter

  (Privately Held; 11-50 employees; Newspapers industry)

  September 1976 — February 1977 (6 months)

  Having graduated from Dartmouth College in June 1976, I returned in August to my home state of New Mexico, where I worked as a one-man news staff for The Santa Fe Reporter, a unqiue weekly newspaper run by former editors of Newsday, Women's Wear Daily, Sports Illustrated and the Louisville Courier Journal.
  
  During a nearly seven-month stint in Santa Fe, I covered and wrote news and feature articles about topics ranging from local water shortages, police misbehavior and grocery worker strikes to state politics, mental and correctional instututions and, maybe most exciting of all, department store window displays,

• Summer Camp Counselor

  Farm and Wilderness

  (Privately Held; 51-200 employees; Recreational Facilities and Services industry)

  June 1976 — August 1976 (3 months)

  After graduating from Dartmouth in June 1976, I had one of the best experiences of my life working as a camp counselor at Farm & Wilderness, a Quaker-influenced boys' summer camp near Plymouth, VT. It's still around and better than ever. If you've got kids, consider F&W. Go to: http://www.farmandwilderness.org.

• Summer Intern

  Albuquerque Tribune

  (Public Company; 11-50 employees; Newspapers industry)

  June 1975 — August 1975 (3 months)

  As editor of my college newspaper, The Dartmouth, I applied for a Dow Jones newspaper internship the summer of my junior year. I was accepted but instead of working at a Wall Street Journal bureau somewhere around the U.S., I returned to my home state of New Mexico to work at the Albuquerque Tribune, a Scripps Howard-owned afternoon daily. All in all, I think I got more out of this experience with just one exception: a WSJ byline.

• Photographer

  Nat Kaplan Homes

  (Privately Held; 1-10 employees; Architecture & Planning industry)

  June 1974 — August 1974 (3 months)

  A Nat Kaplan home in Albuquerque is virtually priceless today, due to 100% adobe construction (nothing faked) and striking, spare, innovative designs. While working days on his construction crew, mixing adobe "mud" and launching shovelfuls one story into the air to the mortar guy, I worked weekends professionally photographing the interiors and exteriors of Nat's many North Valley homes, mostly all built in the 1960s and 1970s, for current and future clients...and posterity.

• Co-Owner

  Arabesque Paper Enterprises

  (Privately Held; 1-10 employees; Fine Art industry)

  July 1970 — August 1974 (4 years 2 months)

  In my sophomore year in high school, I formed Arabesque Paper Enterprises with long-time friend John Rise, a high school classmate at Albuquerque Academy, a nationally known painter and now also a professor at the Savannah College of Art and Design. We sold imported fine art paper for lithography, drawing and watercolor to retailers and directly to artists throughout the Southwest.

• Garden Boy

  Sears, Roebuck and Co.

  (Public Company; 10,001 or more employees; S; Retail industry)

  June 1972 — August 1972 (3 months)

  As a employer, I always look to see if candidates have had any experience "dealing with the public," so here's mine. For one long summer between the end of high school and the start of college, I worked five days a week in the Garden Center at a Sears store in Albuquerque. I don't know how many old ladies' cars I filled with bags of compost, cow manure, fertilizer and bark chips, but It was my speciality (along with moving the calladiums) and what my co-workers, all with greater seniority, looked to me to do.

Gary Slack’s Education

• Dartmouth College

  B.A. , Economics , 1972 — 1976

  Thanks to my high school soccer coach, Dick Reddington, who also served as New Mexico's enrollment director for Dartmouth, three out of a senior class of just 50 boys got into Dartmouth, an amazing feat on Dick's part. My freshman year, I joined the staff of The Dartmouth, where my first lead, "There is a shortage of workers at Thayer Hall," still gets me kidded 35 years later. Thinking the scenic Connecticut river would be a nice place to spend fall afternoons otherwise not occupied bugging administrators for quotes, I joined freshman crew only to quit four weeks later when I realized rowers have no time to gape. After one year in a dorm, I moved to the Coop House, an experiment in group living and the antithesis of a fraternity. One of my proudest moments was being named editor-in-chief and chairman of the board of proprietors of The Dartmouth. Many years later, our oldest son, Alex, followed in our footsteps by serving as editorial board chair of the Harvard Crimson.

  Activities and Societies:

  Editor-in-Chief and Chairman of the Board of Proprietors of The Dartmouth, the oldest daily college newspaper in America; member of Casque & Gauntlet honor society; Dow Jones intern, summer of 1975; freshman crew, 1972; resident of the Dartmouth Cooperative House (an experimental "anti-fraternity group-living unit), 1973-76.

• Albuquerque Academy

  1967 — 1974

Additional Information

Gary Slack’s Interests:

iPhone, iPod, Kindle, Wii, all things Mac, hanging out at the Chicago Botanic Garden (year-round), hanging out at Ravinia (all summer), hanging out in Santa Fe or Nantucket (whenever), visiting public gardens worldwide, science fiction (books, movies, TV), digital photography, contributing to company blog

Gary Slack’s Groups:

Economic Club of Chicago, member of the board of directors
Business Marketing Association (Chicago chapter), president
Business Marketing Association (National), vice chairman
Joffrey Ballet, director
Ravinia Festival, member of the annual fund committee
Chicago Botanic Garden, executive committee of the President's Circle
Albuquerque Academy, trustee
Chicago Association for Science and Technology, director
Direct Marketing Association, member
Chicago Association of Direct Marketing, member
American Marketing Association, member
BPA Worldwide, chair of the event auditing advisory committee

•    Business Marketing Experts
•    Business Marketing Association of New Jersey
•    BMA Carolinas
•    Dartmouth College Alumni
•    Business Marketing Association - DFW Chapter
•    Chicago Interactive Marketing Association (CIMA)
•    Sales Lead Management Association
•    Business Marketing Association-Milwaukee
•    Chicago Advertising Professionals
•    Business Marketing Association
•    B2B Marcom
•    Annual Summit
•    B2B Online Marketing
•    Business Marketing Association - Phoenix
•    Business Marketing Association of Chicago
•    Chicago Association of Direct Marketing
•    Friends of the Funnel
•    Slackers
•    B2B Marketing 2.0
•    Business Marketing Association - Minnesota
•    BtoB Marketing
•    BPA Worldwide
•    Business Marketing Association of New York City
•    Business Marketing Association of Colorado (BMA)
•    Society for Marketing Professional Services (SMPS) Chicago
•    BtoB magazine
•    Chicago Web 2.0 and Social Media Marketing
•    Business Marketing Association - Atlanta
•    American Association of Advertising Agencies
•    DMA Business-to-Business Council
•    Business Marketing Association - Boston
•    Business Marketing Association of Kansas City
•    NorCal BMA (Northern California Business Marketing Association)
•    Porter Novelli Alumni
•    B2B Marketing
•    Business Marketing Association Southern California Chapter (SoCal BMA)
•    ISBM, Institute for the Study of Business Markets
•    Business Marketing Association - St. Louis
•    BMA Houston Chapter
•    B2B Social Media
•    Business to Business Marketing Ohio
•    Business Marketing Association - Philadelphia
•    TopRight
•    BMA/Chicago Board of Directors
•    Getty Images: Brand Breakfast Alumni
•    ECEF - Exhibition & Convention Executives Forum
•    World Business Chicago
•    BMA Chapter and National Leadership Forum
•    Upcoming Events
•    CONEXPO-CON/AGG

Gary Slack’s Honors:

National Agency of the Year: 2002, 2004, 2006, Business Marketing Association
Top Small Agency of the Year: 2001, 2004, BtoB Magazine
Top Midsize Agency of the Year: 2006, BtoB Magazine
Top 3 Midsize Agency of the Year: 2005, 2006, 2007, BtoB Magazine
Top 100 Most Influential People in Business Marketing: 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 20078, BtoB Magazine
"Who's Who" in Chicago, 2007, 2008, Crain's Chicago Business

Gary Slack’s Contact Settings

Interested In:

• consulting offers
• new ventures
• job inquiries
• expertise requests
• business deals
• reference requests
• getting back in touch