Earth Sciences Division Staff: Sam Wright

Biographical Summary

I began my communications career in 1999 at CMP, where I defined competitive media strategy, marketing communications and promotions across an international print and online portfolio, while also managing their advertising operations. I was quickly recruited by a dot-com and took the opportunity to hone my skills at digital-only product development and marketing. As the dot-com bubble burst, I was recruited by Yahoo! to lead a team of developers, designers, product managers and external vendors to produce custom advertising solutions to attract traditional advertisers (e.g., Pepsi, Ford, Disney, etc., etc.) to direct significant chunks of their advertising budgets online, and, in doing so, prove that the medium was viable. We were wildly successful, generating over $30MM net revenue that year, securing all of our "high-value targets", generating new, innovative products and setting new industry standards for highly measurable ROI advertising campaigns. It was at Yahoo! that my affinity for clean, concise communications was augmented with a fascination for web application development and it's ability to add personalization and interactivity to the mix. While working at the New York Times Regional Media Group to make one of their local market papers online operations profitable and more well-trafficked, I was able to develop several more web applications and also program internal process automation. I had also started my own communications design, development and consulting business in 2001 and continue to develop and enhance web applications (from ecommerce systems to content management systems) and print and online communications.

I came to ESD and LBNL in 2007, consulting on website development and redesign, server administration and more. I quickly fell in love with the work, the people, the tremendous opportunity and the location. Since then, I continue to work on getting all of the past decades of ESD work into a centralized CMS, generate new and better tools for communication about the division and the work it's doing, and optimize process and workflow to enable more and more of ESD staff to contribute to the communications directly.

Experience

2008-present, Web Administrator & Communications Manager, Earth Sciences Division, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory

2001-present, Owner, Ryuudo

2003-2007, Online Advertising Operations Manager, The New York Times, Inc.

2001, Marketing Specialist, Yahoo, Inc.

2000, Marketing Specialist, AllAdvantage.com

1999, Associate Manager of Operations, CMP Worlwide Media Networks

Recognitions

2012 LBNL Director's Award

2011 LBNL SPOT Award

2007 LBNL SPOT Award

2006 Press Democrat Leadership Forum

2006 NAA Digital Edge Award Winner – Best Entertainment Site

2004 NAA New Media Fellow 

Education

1994-1998, University of New Mexico, Golden Key National Honors Society, Phi Kappa Phi, The National Dean’s List, and the UNM Minorities Scholarship Award