As we celebrate Envoy’s 30th anniversary this year, I’d like to take a moment to look back at the past and appreciate how far we’ve come.
From Humble Beginnings …
In 1987, I started working at an advertising agency called Hudson Stevens Mailliard. The offices were in a historical, two-bedroom house, which had been converted to office space, on 50th and Capitol in Dundee.
In 1988, Hudson Stevens Mailliard purchased another agency, Walker-Hart, and the new partnership was named HMJ & Associates. At the time, we didn’t know that the people who came together to form HMJ & Associates would lay the foundation for Envoy, an award-winning agency that has prevailed for three decades.
Advertising and marketing certainly have come a long way in the past 30 years. At Envoy, we’ve always prided ourselves on keeping our finger on the pulse of the industry and its advances to provide our clients with the latest creative services, strategies and technologies.
“Our founder used to tell me to shoot a basketball through the hoop in our lobby and he’d let us go home early. The only problem was that I had to stand about 20 feet away and I never made the basket.”
— Penny Hatchell, Co-Owner and President, Started at Envoy in 1991
“There was no media software, so we had to be pretty good with math and have a lot of paper and mechanical pencils – and of course our over-sized adding machines.”
— Barb Chvala, Executive Assistant, Former Media Director and Partner, Started at Envoy in 1991
To Relentless Pursuit of Success
I believe that Envoy’s continued success has something to do with the fact that our company has always been independently owned, and our partners have always worked as hard as our co-workers. We enjoy being right there in the trenches, and the fact that many of the company’s partners started out as employees has given us a genuine appreciation for what agency life can be like for an account exec, a graphic designer and even the receptionist.
We hire people who are exceptional at what they do, and we strive to treat them well, to make Envoy a place they look forward to coming to every day. When our co-workers love what they do, it is unmistakably evident to our clients. They notice it the quality of service they receive, in the way we partner with them, in our passion for ensuring that their marketing and advertising succeed. And when employees and clients are happy, they stick around, so we’re also proud of our employee and client longevity.
And that brings me to the very reason Penny and I, and our entire team, come to work every day: our clients. As we celebrate Envoy’s 30th anniversary, we have so many stories to tell, but we couldn’t tell any of them without our loyal clients who have made these past 30 years possible. We celebrate each of them; we celebrate our talented co-workers, past and present; and we celebrate the power of great advertising and effective marketing.
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