My name is Johnny Adam Levy. I am a Christian, poet, family man, and sales professional living in Colorado Springs, CO.
My story, professionally, goes something like this (the story behind the resume):
Education
Once upon a time, I went to Colorado State University, CO, to obtain my Bachelor's degree in English. While I was in college, I gained a passion for writing poetry, and for working with disadvantaged youth. For several summers in college I traveled and worked at a camp for "at-risk" children aged 9-12, called Camp Hayden-Marks.
Camp Hayden-Marks
The camp was located in upstate New York, and we bused in children from the New York inner-city. Here I was introduced to work with purpose; the labor was intense. The sleep was minimal. I threw my full strength into excelling as a camp counselor; breaking up fights, dealing with the suffering and anger of children, giving them new experiences, relating with them, telling wild campfire stories to wide-eyed faces, and generally learning how love-starved and affection-parched children will soak up kindness and attention like sponges. This was deeply rewarding, painful work and I don't regret a moment of it. I was very effective at relating with the kids and diffusing conflict; I was promoted to village leader my second year. I threw my full strength into investing in counselors, training them and equipping them with the tools to excel in caring for the children. I was responsible for roughly 12 counselors and 36 children. By my fourth and final year I was promoted to the office of Assistant Director / CIT Director, and I took a role in the administration of the camp as a whole, over 200 kids and around 75 staff. Around this time I left college. I was working on my Master's degree in poetry, but decided that it was time to get out of the educational environment and get some life experience. I was a year and a half into my Master's when I left college and took a job as an English teacher at a school for at-risk youth in Fort Collins, CO.
Frontier Alternative High School
Frontier was a high school in Fort Collins, CO serving at-risk youth in the area. The population we served were kids who just hadn't been able to make it in other schools; youth in gangs, youth with drug addictions, and teen moms. The mission of Frontier was to reach the unreachable, and to educate young adults with no other options. I became the English teacher, and threw myself whole-heartedly into the mission for four years. During this time, I built English curriculum completely from scratch, using random and outdated materials. I also spent many nights assisting in "street intervention" with a colleague who was fully plugged in to the gang culture -- we used our position within the school to perform crisis resolution where necessary when conflicts flared up between local gangs. In addition to all this, I coached the basketball team. In my position with the school, I learned endurance, excellent conflict resolution skills, strong classroom management, and once again, how to work hard with very little sleep. Eventually the school was assimilated into the public school system as a charter school, and all the teachers were required to become certified. I entered the alternative teacher licensure program (ATLP), earned my provisional teacher's license, and engaged in my final year of teaching. Around this time I got married and gained a step son. I determined not to renew my contract with the school, and to pursue a job with a lifestyle and a higher wage that would enable me to better support a family.
TrainingOnline
After searching intensely for a job, I was hired by Laramie, WY-based TrainingOnline. TrainingOnline was a technology / training company. It served clients, such as Halliburton, that performed frequent training in the realm of Environmental Health and Safety (EHS). True to the name, TrainingOnline provided online training alternatives to traditional, classroom methods of teaching. Our clients opted for online training for several reasons, such as ease of tracking and storing results, ease and flexibility of course offerings, and normalization of training based on the expressed learning objectives of the courses. Because of my background in education and curriculum design, I was hired as an Instructional Designer. My task was create complete online course outlines (also called "scripts") using a variety of sources, including discussions with Subject Matter Experts, safety regulations, and Internet research. In these scripts, I would write learning objectives, write the course content, write specific directions for screen animations, write lines for voice over talent, request images to be placed in screens, conceptualize interactive exercises to aid in learning, and much more. When I completed the script, I would deliver it to the development team, who would in turn bring the script to life as a rich multi-media course to be delivered online, via a learning management system (LMS). I worked on all kinds of courses, from Explosives Safety training, to Sexual Harassment training, to Blood Borne Pathogens training. As you can imagine, I learned a lot about safety. As time progressed and we were pumping out more and more courses, the company decided to partner with a company in India that provided workers who could help with script writing as well as actual course development. At this point, I was promoted to Instructional Design Coordinator, and I took on more of a project management role. I coordinated script writers in India, edited their scripts, and helped developed quality assurance measures for both scripts and online courses. Eventually, the company was shut down and I was laid off, after two years. That was the end of my commute from Fort Collins, CO to Laramie, WY every day! In this job I honed my technical writing and editing skills. This was where I first got experience helping write copy for sales proposals, which helped prepare me for my next job.
DataJoe
After being laid off, I threw myself into the job hunt and found employment at DataJoe LLC within 30 days of losing my prior job. DataJoe was another technology company, offering a very specialized software and database product to the business publishing industry. The software was powerful, multifaceted, and hard to learn. I was hired for my educational background, and given full responsibility for the DataJoe training program, and all training-related resources. I spent around a month learning the software before I was shipped to Worcester, MA to perform my first full day of on-site training -- at the time I joined the company, all new client training was conducted on-site. My first major achievement at the company was creating a complete, objective-based training program. I also created a comprehensive training manual, entitled the "DataJoe How To Guides." My next step was to research alternatives to on-site training, and I discovered inexpensive online webinar software that enabled me to test out remote training for new clients. The experiment was a success, and forever changed the face of the training program at DataJoe. DataJoe now conducts all training via Webinar, with a format that enables clients to achieve proficiency in all of the learning objectives. To date, I would estimate that DataJoe has saved tens of thousands of dollars in travel expenses. Clients continue to learn effectively through this medium; we have seen no ill affects from the transition to distance training. After I had fully established a training program that could be taken and implemented by other members of the team, I was invited to enter into a sales capacity for the company. I was promoted to Sales Manager. During this time, I used my extensive product knowledge, teaching/communication skills, and writing skills to grow the company. During my five years in a sales capacity, the business grew from serving 36 publications to 75 publications -- more than doubling in size of clientele. New clients provided substantial ongoing licensing fees, which helped the company move from startup mode into self sufficiency and profitability. As the company grew, my duties transitioned out of those of a strict sales capacity (although I did continue to sell) and into the realm of business development and crisis intervention. I consulted with the President of the company on business strategy, pricing, and strategic partnerships, and became an essential voice in helping guide the company towards growth.
After several years, the President of the company resigned, and I was promoted to Business Development Manager. A colleague and I were given operational control of the company. I was given greater autonomy in making sales decisions; I refined and adjusted the software pricing model and began a campaign to continue to grow the company through general sales, seeking out strategic partnerships, finding new markets, and influencing the engineering of the software for greater profitability.
In 2012 I was promoted to President of the company.
I remain with DataJoe in this capacity to this day.
The End.
My story, professionally, goes something like this (the story behind the resume):
Education
Once upon a time, I went to Colorado State University, CO, to obtain my Bachelor's degree in English. While I was in college, I gained a passion for writing poetry, and for working with disadvantaged youth. For several summers in college I traveled and worked at a camp for "at-risk" children aged 9-12, called Camp Hayden-Marks.
Camp Hayden-Marks
The camp was located in upstate New York, and we bused in children from the New York inner-city. Here I was introduced to work with purpose; the labor was intense. The sleep was minimal. I threw my full strength into excelling as a camp counselor; breaking up fights, dealing with the suffering and anger of children, giving them new experiences, relating with them, telling wild campfire stories to wide-eyed faces, and generally learning how love-starved and affection-parched children will soak up kindness and attention like sponges. This was deeply rewarding, painful work and I don't regret a moment of it. I was very effective at relating with the kids and diffusing conflict; I was promoted to village leader my second year. I threw my full strength into investing in counselors, training them and equipping them with the tools to excel in caring for the children. I was responsible for roughly 12 counselors and 36 children. By my fourth and final year I was promoted to the office of Assistant Director / CIT Director, and I took a role in the administration of the camp as a whole, over 200 kids and around 75 staff. Around this time I left college. I was working on my Master's degree in poetry, but decided that it was time to get out of the educational environment and get some life experience. I was a year and a half into my Master's when I left college and took a job as an English teacher at a school for at-risk youth in Fort Collins, CO.
Frontier Alternative High School
Frontier was a high school in Fort Collins, CO serving at-risk youth in the area. The population we served were kids who just hadn't been able to make it in other schools; youth in gangs, youth with drug addictions, and teen moms. The mission of Frontier was to reach the unreachable, and to educate young adults with no other options. I became the English teacher, and threw myself whole-heartedly into the mission for four years. During this time, I built English curriculum completely from scratch, using random and outdated materials. I also spent many nights assisting in "street intervention" with a colleague who was fully plugged in to the gang culture -- we used our position within the school to perform crisis resolution where necessary when conflicts flared up between local gangs. In addition to all this, I coached the basketball team. In my position with the school, I learned endurance, excellent conflict resolution skills, strong classroom management, and once again, how to work hard with very little sleep. Eventually the school was assimilated into the public school system as a charter school, and all the teachers were required to become certified. I entered the alternative teacher licensure program (ATLP), earned my provisional teacher's license, and engaged in my final year of teaching. Around this time I got married and gained a step son. I determined not to renew my contract with the school, and to pursue a job with a lifestyle and a higher wage that would enable me to better support a family.
TrainingOnline
After searching intensely for a job, I was hired by Laramie, WY-based TrainingOnline. TrainingOnline was a technology / training company. It served clients, such as Halliburton, that performed frequent training in the realm of Environmental Health and Safety (EHS). True to the name, TrainingOnline provided online training alternatives to traditional, classroom methods of teaching. Our clients opted for online training for several reasons, such as ease of tracking and storing results, ease and flexibility of course offerings, and normalization of training based on the expressed learning objectives of the courses. Because of my background in education and curriculum design, I was hired as an Instructional Designer. My task was create complete online course outlines (also called "scripts") using a variety of sources, including discussions with Subject Matter Experts, safety regulations, and Internet research. In these scripts, I would write learning objectives, write the course content, write specific directions for screen animations, write lines for voice over talent, request images to be placed in screens, conceptualize interactive exercises to aid in learning, and much more. When I completed the script, I would deliver it to the development team, who would in turn bring the script to life as a rich multi-media course to be delivered online, via a learning management system (LMS). I worked on all kinds of courses, from Explosives Safety training, to Sexual Harassment training, to Blood Borne Pathogens training. As you can imagine, I learned a lot about safety. As time progressed and we were pumping out more and more courses, the company decided to partner with a company in India that provided workers who could help with script writing as well as actual course development. At this point, I was promoted to Instructional Design Coordinator, and I took on more of a project management role. I coordinated script writers in India, edited their scripts, and helped developed quality assurance measures for both scripts and online courses. Eventually, the company was shut down and I was laid off, after two years. That was the end of my commute from Fort Collins, CO to Laramie, WY every day! In this job I honed my technical writing and editing skills. This was where I first got experience helping write copy for sales proposals, which helped prepare me for my next job.
DataJoe
After being laid off, I threw myself into the job hunt and found employment at DataJoe LLC within 30 days of losing my prior job. DataJoe was another technology company, offering a very specialized software and database product to the business publishing industry. The software was powerful, multifaceted, and hard to learn. I was hired for my educational background, and given full responsibility for the DataJoe training program, and all training-related resources. I spent around a month learning the software before I was shipped to Worcester, MA to perform my first full day of on-site training -- at the time I joined the company, all new client training was conducted on-site. My first major achievement at the company was creating a complete, objective-based training program. I also created a comprehensive training manual, entitled the "DataJoe How To Guides." My next step was to research alternatives to on-site training, and I discovered inexpensive online webinar software that enabled me to test out remote training for new clients. The experiment was a success, and forever changed the face of the training program at DataJoe. DataJoe now conducts all training via Webinar, with a format that enables clients to achieve proficiency in all of the learning objectives. To date, I would estimate that DataJoe has saved tens of thousands of dollars in travel expenses. Clients continue to learn effectively through this medium; we have seen no ill affects from the transition to distance training. After I had fully established a training program that could be taken and implemented by other members of the team, I was invited to enter into a sales capacity for the company. I was promoted to Sales Manager. During this time, I used my extensive product knowledge, teaching/communication skills, and writing skills to grow the company. During my five years in a sales capacity, the business grew from serving 36 publications to 75 publications -- more than doubling in size of clientele. New clients provided substantial ongoing licensing fees, which helped the company move from startup mode into self sufficiency and profitability. As the company grew, my duties transitioned out of those of a strict sales capacity (although I did continue to sell) and into the realm of business development and crisis intervention. I consulted with the President of the company on business strategy, pricing, and strategic partnerships, and became an essential voice in helping guide the company towards growth.
After several years, the President of the company resigned, and I was promoted to Business Development Manager. A colleague and I were given operational control of the company. I was given greater autonomy in making sales decisions; I refined and adjusted the software pricing model and began a campaign to continue to grow the company through general sales, seeking out strategic partnerships, finding new markets, and influencing the engineering of the software for greater profitability.
In 2012 I was promoted to President of the company.
I remain with DataJoe in this capacity to this day.
The End.
