Over the holidays at ELEVATE, our diets often consisted of cashews, generic licorice, beef sticks and, in Jared’s case, Pierre’s sandwiches. Which probably caused all of us to grow in a way that’s not necessarily health-conscious. But during that time the company was growing in a healthy way – in clients, projects, brain power, building size, employee counts and the list goes on.

While we may not be excited about our new waistlines, we are proud of ELEVATE’s growth. We started in 2009 with a petite client list that quickly expanded to include three AOR’s and many other clients and projects. It’s a trend that has already continued in 2010, starting off with two new business pitches within the first five days of the year.

And at one year old, we’re happy. At my daughter’s first birthday party, she was ecstatic with the cake that was as big as her head and the mounds of gifts our families gave to her. We are that happy. Maybe a little happier.

We’re anxious to be in the new space – of which the build-out is coming along very well. And we’re happy that two, talented people accepted offers to join our team (more on them later!)

ELEVATE is growing and we’re proud and happy, excited and anxious. Thanks for a great first year and here’s to an even better year #2.

We are excited to announce that Capital Health, a family owned and operated home health, nursing, assisted and independent living facility management company with 15 facilities, selected ELEVATE thinking to launch the branding and marketing campaign supporting their new cancer recovery centers. The partnership includes strategy, brand implementation, advertising, media buying, public relations support, marketing and communication support.

The Capital Health philosophy is to care for patients as they would their own family; and with that in mind, they are launching the first cancer recovery centers in the Midwest. The Centers will be located at the Capital Health facilities of the Oaks of West Kettering and the Carriage Inn of Steubenville.

The Cancer Recovery Centers are very forward thinking in their offering and we’re proud to support their care initiatives with brand development, marketing strategy and community and media outreach. This is an exciting relationship for us and marks the beginning of a long-term relationship.

The Cancer Recovery Centers are unique, state-of-the-art facilities at which cancer patients can recover and receive multidisciplinary care. The specially trained staff includes physical therapists, specialty nurses, occupational therapists, speech therapists, dieticians and counselors. The Centers put the patient first with available treatments such as aquatic therapy, nutrition programming, calorimetry therapy, symptom and pain management and other beneficial programs. The Cancer Recovery Center at the Carriage Inn of Steubenville opened Oct. 15 and the Cancer Recovery Center at the Oaks of West Kettering opened Oct. 21.

We’ve been going a hundred different directions lately, which is all good. Except there’s one thing that’s been on the top of my list that I just haven’t been able to get to — the introduction of Lisa Minken, our newest account director. She’s smart, talented and she can sing. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

Lisa joins us from Opera Columbus where she served as director of marketing and public relations. But it’s more than her experience that brought her here. Once again, it’s all about relationships at ELEVATE. I’ve known Lisa for nearly ten years and I’m excited to work with her. Her personality, attitude and dedication fits right in with the rest of us.

Of course, her talents and skills are also a great fit. Her background includes work in healthcare, apparel, durable goods and propane industries, as well as profit, nonprofit and agency work. This is someone who knows how to provide amazing work in campaign development and implementation, event planning, community engagement and more.

Which is going to come in handy as she provides ELEVATE with stellar internal communication and project support on-the-ground at Adena. Well, not actually on-the-ground… We got her a chair on her third day. Along with adding another level of organization and account management to the group, we’re also proud that she’ll continue to support Opera Columbus while at ELEVATE.

Learn more about Lisa and ask her to sing you a song @LisaMinken