Who We Are

Ignite brings together the country’s most talented advertising and public relations volunteers to ignite change
​Heather 
Founder/Executive Director​
​A passionate ignitor and social cause leader, Heather ran Serve a non profit social cause advertising agency for five years. She has over 20 years of non-profit communications and development experience and spent five of those years at Milwaukee’s PBS affiliate station, Channels 10 & 36, as their Marketing Director. An Emmy award-winning producer, Heather has managed results-producing awareness campaigns for social causes including foster care/adoption, teen pregnancy, infant mortality, gun violence and teen homelessness.
Dave
Executive Creative Director
As a Creative Director and Senior Copywriter, Dave has helped build brands and generate successful, creative campaigns for Fortune 500 companies including Harley-Davidson, Pepsico, Gallo, and SC Johnson. He has developed brand definition models, written and produced video, developed social media strategy and content, and concepted in-store and on-premise promotions, including that coaster sitting under your ice cold mug of beer. Dave has happily worked with Heather for years on a variety of her events and campaigns.
Tess
Lead Editor/Storyteller
Tess has had over 30 years of documentary and television production experience and 20 years of teaching journalism and media production courses for local colleges and universities including UWM, and MATC. Her professional credits include award-winning documentaries for national PBS outlets, a thirteen-part series for the Discovery Channel, and rich historical video projects for museums. Her most recent documentary collaboration, as editor/writer on The Exchange: In White America for C-Bird productions, has won Best Documentary at the Mesa International and Beloit film festivals, and Audience Choice at the Hollywood International Diversity Film Festival.
Job Harper
​Cinematographer 
For over a decade Job Harper (Oki) has been honing his camera skills and has emerged as a true artist when it comes to making video beautiful.  His talents are especially impressive in low light and on-the-fly situations.  He and Heather met through Running Rebels Community Organization and have developed a optimal creative work flow when producing videos together.  When he's not adjusting aperture on a set or editing from his laptop, he's writing original music to enhance an Ignite story or to fuel his music career.   
Bebo
Art Director
Bebo Nelson is an Art Director who has work on branding for many
Fortune 500 companies including Pepsi, Frito-Lay, Gallo, Jim Beam and Dial, to name
​ a few. He's developed everything from brand packaging, point of purchase marketing, Social Media to on premise marketing tools. He and Heather have worked together for years on a variety of campaigns and events.​
Bob Purman 
Volunteer Director/Cinematographer
A director for 25 years Bob has directed commercials for a wide range of national clients--from McDonalds to Purina.  He spent almost two decades with Moxy pictures out of Hollywood and moved to GO films based in Los Angles and Sequoia Content in Toronto. In 2022 he was inducted into the Wisconsin Advertising Hall of Fame.  His deep love of getting to know interesting people has helped to cultivate his niche in documentary/human profiles.  An expert interviewer and visual storyteller, he and Heather earned an 2002 Emmy award for "Guitar Notes,'" a PBS special about famous guitar players and their guitars. Purman began experimenting with making cider 15 years ago and in 2011 he launched Island Orchard Cider (islandorchardcider.com) with his wife Yannique.
Drew
Digital Consultant
Drew Griswold is a marketer by trade who cut his teeth in the world of non-profit and cause marketing - where the art of making a lot with a little is canon. Over the last 6 years he's bootstrapped two different businesses into market leaders in their respective fields. Building Wander & Co., Drew managed well over $400k in ad spend while maintaining high ROAS. He's also led Camp Halcyon from the concept phase to a annual sold-out tourism experience - all by using of word of mouth and highly efficient digital marketing strategies. He has the Facebook Blueprint certification, which ensures that he's on the leading edge of Facebook's digital advertising platform.
Michael
Volunteer Illustrator
Micheal is an illustrator and animator with over 20 years of experience bringing brand personalities to life with original content across print and social media. He is the creator of a number of short animated films, having exhibited at the Wisconsin and Milwaukee Film Festivals. Michael has worked with Heather to produce a growing library of illustrations and animation for The National Alliance for Strong Families and Children.
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