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Tell us a little about your career background.

I’ve been in the agency business almost my whole career. I started back, I’m embarrassed to say, in the mid ’70s with an agency called (Creswell, Munsell, Fultz & Zirbel). It was the largest agency in the state at that time. I’ve worked at five different advertising agencies throughout my career, and the longest stint was with Porter & Associates. We sold the agency, of which I was a principal, five years ago and I joined Mike (Schreurs, CEO of Strategic America) and John (Schreurs, chief operating officer and president). I’ve known Mike for 28 years. I think about two years went by and they had a formalized program that they put Lore Solo through, a one-year program that went through a number of management skills courses. I did the same thing last year and then was made a principal.

Has your role changed?

I still focus primarily in two areas: client service, making sure we have the resources properly aligned for our clients and that we provide the very highest level of service that we possibly can, and new business development. We’ve grown significantly since I first joined the agency. I think we had 14 people in our client services organization, and today we have 26 people. It’s the largest department at Strategic America, and I think that’s because we really have a service philosophy.

Has the firm been affected by the economic downturn?

We’ve seen some downturn in spending on some of the existing clients, but we’ve picked up a lot of new business as well. For an agency of just 100 people, to have the account base that we have is really quite stunning. When I first started talking to Mike and John, when I looked at their account base, I was amazed at the national brands they had but also the length of time they’ve been working with these people. Our real niche is what we call channel marketing. What that means is we help national and regional marketers advertise at the local level through their agents, dealers and retailers. We have the only automated online media planning and placement tool in the country.

What excites you about the business?

The change. I’ve been in the business for over 30 years and it’s far different than it was before. More is expected of us. We have to do more with less. There’s been a great deal of consolidation, both of our clients and in the agency world itself. There are very few agencies anymore like Strategic America that are independent. Many agencies our size sell out to large multinational conglomerates.

What is one career accomplishment that stands out?

I had the distinction of spearheading three different media groups to win Mediaweek’s Media Plan of the Year Award. Few other agencies in the Midwest have ever won it more than once. The agency I was a principal in in the past (Porter), we won it three years out of five. So you go to the Rockefeller Center and you’re with the biggest agencies in the world and here we are just a little agency from Des Moines.

Was it hard leaving Porter?

No. I had a good run there. I thought maybe I would go into something completely different, but I didn’t like that. I’ll probably retire in about five years, but before I do that, I’d like to see this agency become about $150 million in annual capitalized billing. I’d like to see it basically double in size in the next five years.

What do you like to do for fun?

I love to downhill ski. I’m a mountain trekker. I like to golf. I kayak. Fishing – we have a place in Spirit Lake, so I go up there to unwind.