THIS YEAR'S JUDGES

Matt Hildebrand is Associate Creative Director-Multimedia at Mullen in Pittsburgh. He started out drawing comics and typefaces, took some fine arts courses and ended up with a degree in Design. He has also flipped burgers, worked the night shift in a convenience store, ran a printing press and manned the lung-gun on a turkey farm.

He does mostly print work, some web, but spends more and more time directing and editing video projects. Won a few awards, including ADDYs, had work featured in Print, been praised at length by his mother, that kind of thing. He has worked with Carnegie Museums of Pittsburgh, Toyota, University of Pittsburgh, Lowes, Harcourt Publishing, the ACLU, Giant Eagle and Morgan Stanley.

He likes to draw dirty cartoons, grow amusing facial hair, listen to music and fight the power. And routinely infuriates family and friends by naming typefaces on sight. Oh, and he really like a good piece of pie.

Eileen Coale credits her love of language, skilled storytelling, and gift of persuasion to her Irish ancestry. Writing almost since the time she could hold a pencil, Eileen earned her first paycheck as a writer at age 15. Her first career was as a Russian translator for the Department of Defense, where she handled complex technical subjects in two languages. In the 90's, she wrote freelance magazine articles and a personal finance newspaper column for six years. Eileen began writing copy in 2000. Since then she has written sales copy for the financial industry, the healthcare industry (both traditional and alternative), and for B2B companies. Her clients have also included coaches, consultants, sales professionals, information marketers, and consumer service providers.

In April of 2006, Eileen was an award winner at the Power Marketing Summit in Washington, DC, sponsored by Clayton Makepeace and The Total Package. Her direct mail package for a CoQ10 nutritional supplement was awarded an Honorable Mention. Eileen speaks to local and regional business groups about marketing and copywriting, and in the past has served as a Board Member for the Entrepreneur's Exchange, an Annapolis, Maryland non-profit organization. She is also a co-author of Million Dollar Marketing Secrets, published in 2007. For more information, visit www.eileencoale.com and www.thenaturalhealthcopywriter.com.

Upon graduating from The Art Institute of Pittsburgh in 2005, Derek joined Blattner Brunner. As an art director at the Pittsburgh agency, he has created memorable ad campaigns for Cub Cadet, Pittsburgh Corning and Zippo.

In just a few years, his work has garnered national recognition in several publications including Adweek, One. A Magazine and Creative Advertising: Ideas and Techniques from the WorldÕs Best Campaigns 2nd Edition. He also won gold in the Graphis Poster Annual and Best of Show in the 2007 Pittsburgh Addy Awards.

Derek was born and raised in Pittsburgh and is an avid Steelers fan. The Pirates? Not so much.

Jennifer May is a time-traveling, shape-shifting wizard. She lives in a world where Elvis is very alive. Where furniture and knick-knacks from the 1950s fill every home. And where she can disappear beneath pages of code and binary data at any given moment. She covets your grandmother's wardrobe while designing interactive websites for 25-34 year-olds, and drives a miniature car in an era dominated by road warrior tanks.

Jennifer has been designing for the web since its infancy. But as the web grows into a mature, responsible adult, she still approaches it with the imagination, creativity and excitement of a child. Which has resulted in winning quite a few awards while at Point to Point in Cleveland. So, needless to say, Jennifer is very happy at this moment in time. But keep an eye on her. Because she might just slip into a vortex to Graceland and stay there until Elvis dies.

As Art Director at Think Communications, Inc. in Pittsburgh, Kris Schott puts his hard-charging creativity to work to bring tasty concepts to life for a range of clients including Bruster's Ice Cream, Eat'n Park Restaurants, Sheetz Convenience Stores and local favorite Albert's Meats.

Kris has also reinvigorated the look and feel of some of our area's leading industrial brands, including Herr-Voss Stamco and Nicholson Construction Company while getting in touch with his softer side with outstanding work on non-profits like the Boy Scouts of America and Big Brothers Big Sisters.

Kris is a graduate of the Art Institute of Pittsburgh, enjoys long walks along the Allegheny River and of course, bleeds black and gold for his favorite local teams, the 'Stillers' and the up and coming Pittsburgh Penguins