Professional experience and training at
the nation's leading companies and schools
Mark Ziegler's work in corporate communications, public relations, marketing and advertising has exposed him to some of the world's most fascinating companies and technologies. Whether the field has been aerospace, high-tech, chemicals, biotechnology, consumer electronics, retail or state government policy, it's been quite a journey. And it all started with a solid foundation acquired at a renowned school.
University of Missouri School of Journalism
While graduating from the top-ranked University of Missouri School
of Journalism, Ziegler earned valuable reporting and announcing experience at the Columbia Missourian, a citywide UPI newspaper; KOMU-TV, an NBC affiliate; and KBIA-FM, a National Public Radio affiliate.
Ziegler garnered a second degree from "Mizzou" in political science, while also serving in the office of Missouri Gov. Christopher "Kit"
Bond, the eventual four-term U.S. senator from the Show-Me State.
Early career
Ziegler started his career in public relations and internal communications at Monsanto Company, at the time a Fortune 50 chemical and biotechnology giant based in St. Louis that boasted one of industry's most highly regarded public relations departments. Next, he joined the public relations department of Pay 'n Save Corporation, a Seattle-based West Coast retail conglomerate and Washington's fourth-largest employer.
The Boeing Company
Three years later, he began his 15-year stint at The Boeing Company in Seattle, the nation's leading exporter, serving at various locations around the Puget Sound region.
As part of a large in-house bureau that operated much like a traditional public relations or advertising agency, Ziegler assisted clients from throughout the huge aerospace company.
He helped these various departments determine their communications needs, define their audiences, refine their messages, and then
produced award-winning programs and pieces for placement in many corporate, divisional and management publications. His byline
was a familiar, well-respected sight in the company's 16-page Boeing News, distributed to 300,000 readers weekly.
Name a subject, and chances are he wrote about it: first flights of airplanes; wind tunnel testing; exceptional efforts by Boeing suppliers; earthquake preparedness; health, safety and wellness issues; recycling programs; computing architecture and security; employee benefits; corporate "change" inititatives; spelling bees; and much more.
But Ziegler was perhaps most associated with many memorable
features about Boeing employees participating in or helped by two
major corporate programs: Working Solutions, an outside service contracted by Boeing to provide day care, eldercare and emergency services to employees; and the Boeing Employees Good Neighbor Fund (BEGNF), the world's most successful employee-owned corporate giving program. In 1991, the communications team for BEGNF, of which Ziegler was a member, won the United Way's international award for best corporate campaign.
His lyrical, haunting analogy to "wolves" in the story at right, about
a BEGNF volunteer who was herself helped during a traumatic life episode decades earlier, drew the following expression of gratitude
from Ziegler's client: "I was impressed with Mark's story. He has
outdone himself. It was a terrific piece of work."
"Your writing is some of the best I've seen in the Boeing News,"
another reader once wrote to Ziegler after reading his whimsical
retelling of the Boeing Spell Off. "Other people in my group
commented on it, too."
Said the editor of Boeing News simply: "Everything he sends over
is great!"
Mark Ziegler Communications
Since 2002, Ziegler has performed communications, public relations and writing duties, on a freelance and contract basis, for a number of private- and public-sector clients.
Contract assignments have included:
- Washington State Department of Personnel -- As manager,
Internal Communications, Ziegler wrote, published and took
pictures for the agency's enormously popular Weekly Briefs
e-newsletter. "I've worked for the state for 14 years, at three
state agencies, and your newsletter is easily the best I've seen,"
one employee told him. Another wrote and said, "I must continue
to tell you how great this work has been. It's so informative and
looks great, too."
In addition to these internal communications duties, Ziegler
crafted executive messages and talking points for the
department's director; produced press releases and talking points about departmental issues for use by Washington Gov. Christine Gregoire and her staff; and performed marketing communications duties for the Washington State Combined Fund Drive and the Washington State Employee Assistance Program, both administered and housed by the Department of Personnel. - Digeo, Paul Allen's high-tech entertainment venture -- Developed and distributed the weekly Digeo Times e-newletter; created executive profiles for the intranet; wrote messages for corporate executives to employees on critical business issues; and produced popular audio-visual presentations for the quarterly all-employee meetings.
- Fluke Networks, a division of the Fluke Corporation -- Wrote copy and administered the division's intranet news site.
Freelance clients have included:
- Weyerhaeuser -- articles for the companywide Weyerhaeuser Today
- Holland America Line -- stories for companywide Inside Passages
- Edge Communications, a Los Angeles-based public relations agency serving the high-tech industry -- press releases for Edge clients uSamp, one of the world's fastest-growing market sample companies, and Nitto Tire U.S.A.
- National Association of Electrical Distributors -- marketing writing for national conferences
- Golder Associates, an international ground engineering and environmental services company
More recently
Ziegler served as communications manager at CallFire, a Los Angeles-area company named to the “Ten of Southern California's Top Software Companies” list. The startup offers automated text and phone message campaigns, as well as call center, interactive voice response and keyword products, via two user interfaces on its cloud-based platform. Major customers include one of the nation's leading insurance companies, both political parties, universities and governmental emergency notification systems.
During his tenure, he oversaw development of the website's first careers section; created the firm's first-ever technical documentation, written in a friendly, marketing type of tone; and published and doubled readership of the weekly e-newsletter, featuring a mix of news and humor. Other duties included the writing and editing of marketing copy, blog postings, service announcements to customers, and messages from management to employees, in addition to providing pictures to the company's Facebook crew.
Previously, he served as media relations manager at an Orange County, Calif., aerospace supplier. He secured numerous placements with national and international trade publications, including five interview opportunities for the corporate president.
Entertainment
In the last decade, Ziegler has also dabbled in acting and
screenwriting. Among his acting roles was a turn onstage (far right) as a rather suave modern-day bloodsucker in "The Vampire Masquerade."
In 2012, he wrote his first script -- "Sam & Delalla" -- from
a film treatment provided by Two Cuzzins Entertainment.
It's the story of two cowboy-brothers-turned-saloon-owners in the Mojave Desert who get roped into a body part harvesting scheme by a visiting seductress. In addition to the requisite carving, it features plenty of suggestive banter and totally taboo physicality.
Again in conjuction with Two Cuzzins, he's developed a more mainstream film treatment, "Where They Galloped, The Earth Sang," which tells the story of a 20th-century adverturess who owned one of the greatest thoroughbreds of all time.
Activities/interests
As a child in pre-Disney Orlando, Fla., Ziegler's fantasies were of celestial explorations with the astronauts. His teenage years were spent in the Midwest, in beautiful Kansas City, where he starred on his high school's conference championship tennis team. As a senior, he won nearly 90 percent of his matches, claimed the conference tournament's doubles title, was selected team captain after the season by his teammates, and was honored at the end of his playing career by being named to the highly successful program's hall of fame by his coach. After college years spent amongst the beloved columns of Ol' Mizzou, he moved to the West Coast, desiring to experience the vast beauty of the rest of America. And explore he has -- as seen in his frequent Facebook travel posts.
Besides these outdoors adventures and long, meandering road trips through Canada and the American West -- including the majestic Mount St. Helens volcano (right) and magnificent Monument Valley (below) -- Ziegler's other interests include the arts, movies, animals, almost all sports and almost all things political.
In his spare time, he's also
served his alma mater, the
University of Missouri, for
more than three decades. He
helped create the Seattle-
Puget Sound chapter of the
Mizzou Alumni Association and was a member of the executive board
for over 20 years, the last eight as co-president. Since relocating to
Southern California, he's become an active participant in the
LA-Orange County alumni chapter, taking many photographs that
document the fun and fellowship at watch parties and other events.
A lover of both college and pro sports, he's also served as unofficial photographer/videographer for the huge Chiefs Los Angeles fan club -- "Arrowhead West" -- during the team's championship runs of recent years.
GO MIZZOU TIGERS!!!
Seattle-Puget Sound Tigers (1990s)
LA-Orange County Tigers (2010s)
GO KANSAS CITY CHIEFS!!!
Chiefs Los Angeles fan club, Jalapeno Pete's, "Arrowhead West," Studio City, late-2010s to mid-2020s
(Click on the above YouTube image to play the one-take video.
My favorite part is at the end, so hang in there and be patient!)