How long have you been in business?
I founded CENTRIC 19 years ago. We started as Brown Marketing Strategies and have grown into a full-service integrated marketing agency serving clients throughout California and beyond.

What do you love most about what you do?
I love helping take someone’s vision and bringing it to life. Sometimes a client comes to us with a very clear vision, and other times they just know what they want to accomplish. I love helping connect the dots and taking that initial idea, building the strategy around it and watching our team turn it into something real.

What’s a piece of advice you tell your clients or customers that will save them time, money, or both?
Don’t quit-start a campaign. Start by knowing the outcome you want, your goals and objectives, and be realistic about what you’re offering and whether it truly provides value to your audience.

Then give your marketing enough time to work. That doesn’t mean doing the same thing over and over if it isn’t producing results. Pivoting is a good thing. Watch how people respond, listen to customer feedback, make adjustments and keep optimizing. There is a big difference between being patient with a strategy and being stubborn about one.

Which part of your job will AI never be able to do?
The human touch. Technology can make us faster and give us incredible tools, but it can’t replace compassion, relationships or truly understanding what motivates another person. At CENTRIC, compassion drives our passion to help people and organizations succeed. I don’t see that changing.

What makes your work environment somewhere you enjoy being?
The people. I’m incredibly proud of the culture our team has built, and CENTRIC was honored to be named one of the San Diego Business Journal’s Best Places to Work in 2025. We work hard, but we also genuinely like one another. Creativity is collaborative, and I think people do their best work when they feel supported, valued and comfortable bringing ideas to the table.

What other local clubs or associations do you belong to besides the PLA?
I’m also involved with the Ocean Beach MainStreet Association. It’s important to me to support the entire Peninsula. This is where I live and work, so being able to contribute professionally and personally to the community means a great deal to me.

What’s a local business that’s gone away that you’d love to bring back?
Gus’s on Rosecrans! Best sub sandwiches ever. I still miss them.

What did you want to be when you grew up — and if it’s not what you do now, why did you give up on that?
I’ve discovered another career I might have loved: city planning! We do a lot of outreach and marketing for major infrastructure and transportation projects for cities, counties and public agencies, so we work closely with planners, engineers, architects and design firms. I find the whole process fascinating how communities grow, how projects are designed and how all of those pieces come together.

Luckily, through our work, I get to be part of that world without having to change careers.

If your business had a theme song, what would it be?
“Unstoppable.” That probably says a lot about me and about CENTRIC.

What’s a fun or interesting skill or talent you have outside of work?
I make a mean ravioli and meatball!

PLA & Hollywood on the Harbor

What inspired the design and overall vision for this year’s gala invitation?

One of my favorite parts of working on the PLA Gala each year is helping the event chair bring their vision to life.

This year, Gala Chair Jamie Saylor had a vision for “Hollywood on the Harbor.” Jamie and I work really well together, she knew the feeling and experience she wanted to create, and my role was to take that vision and translate it into the creative to help create the event theme.

That has really been my role with the gala chairs throughout the years. Each chair brings their own personality and ideas to the event, and I get to help make those ideas tangible.

What elements or details did you want to capture about the “Hollywood on the Harbor” theme?

We wanted it to feel glamorous and fun, with that unmistakable old-Hollywood energy, but still feel like Point Loma. It couldn’t just be “Hollywood”; it had to be Hollywood on the Harbor.

And because this is PLA’s 65th anniversary, there is an added sense of celebration. We wanted the invitation to immediately make you feel like this is going to be a special night.

What inspires your creative approach when bringing a project like this to life?

I listen first.

My job isn’t to walk into a project and impose my vision on someone else. It’s to really understand what they see in their head, what they want people to feel and what they’re trying to accomplish, and then help bring that to life.

That’s something I love about working with Jamie and something I’ve enjoyed with all of our PLA gala chairs over the years. They bring inspiration; I help translate it into an experience people can see and feel.

It’s actually very similar to what we do at CENTRIC every day. Great marketing starts with understanding someone else’s vision, audience and goals, not ours.

What do you hope guests feel when they receive the invitation and attend the event?

I want that immediate reaction of, “Oh, this is going to be fun. I want to go!”

The invitation is really the first touchpoint of the gala experience, so it should create anticipation for what’s ahead. And when everyone arrives, I hope that excitement turns into pride, pride in PLA, pride in our community and pride in everything that so many volunteers have accomplished together.

What is your role with the Point Loma Association?

I serve as PLA’s Communications and Marketing Chair, and much of the work that I and my CENTRIC team contribute throughout the year, including our support of the Gala, is donated.

For me, that distinction is important. PLA isn't simply another organization CENTRIC works with. This is our community.

I’m fortunate to have a talented team that can share their expertise over the years to support PLA’s communications, graphics, invitations and events. Being able to use what we do professionally to help an organization that does so much for Point Loma is incredibly rewarding.