BIOS

Katherine Jones

Principal and Founder

Katherine has more than 15 years of experience in creating interactive and visual media. Trained as a medical illustrator, she entered the world of 3-D computer visualization via her medical imaging work in graduate school and later with the Visible Human Project at the National Library of Medicine.

For five years, Katherine served as creative director at Engineering Animation, Inc., where she produced animations, illustrations and CD-ROMs for clients such as The Smithsonian, Time Warner, Merck, Glaxo, Hasbro and Mattel. Her direction on top-selling Barbie Magic Hairstyler CD-ROM lead to her next position as senior vice president of creative development at Girl Games, Inc., where she designed and produced original and licensed interactive entertainment products for teen girls. Just before starting Milkshake, Katherine worked on several films including the title sequence for Fight Club, and concept designs for The Cell and Minority Report.

Katherine founded Milkshake in 1999 and in 2005 was awarded the Austin Ad Fed's "Ad Woman of the Year." That same year, Milkshake received the American Marketing Association's Marketer of the Year Award. Katherine's also received the Austin Business Journal "Profiles in Power: Futurist" Award and serves on several boards, including the Austin Children's Museum, The Seton Forum, American Youthworks, SXSW Interactive, People Fund and The Crossings.

Raised in the Washington, D.C. area, Katherine graduated from University of Michigan with a BFA in Fine Arts and a BGS in Zoology and earned an MA from The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Biological and Medical Illustration.

 

Randall Macon

Brand Strategy & Planning Director

Randall came to Milkshake after serving as the Director of Innovations for the Lance Armstrong Foundation (LAF). At the LAF he was responsible for strategic marketing and product planning including the launch of the LIVESTRONG brand and its associated service offerings. Randall's passion for the design process has focused on preliminary research from traditional quantitative and qualitative methodologies to creative facilitation. Prior to joining the LAF he was a business and technology consultant managing large multi-disciple teams at Human Code/Sapient.

Randall graduated from Baylor University in 1993 with a B.A. in Journalism and Communication Arts.

 

Curt Crawford

Creative Director

With over 20 years of advertising agency experience, Curt has created award-winning work at some of the largest agencies in Austin, San Francisco and Kansas City. A genuinely creative thinker with a passion for the flawlessly executed concept, his special interest in markets, customers, brands and the dynamic ties that bind them together, has served him well in building well-known consumer and business-to-business brands in a wide variety of categories and media expressions.

Before joining Milkshake, Curt was creative director at Tocquigny, where he oversaw the creative tone for media-agnostic development and solutions for all clients and generated creative approaches and treatments aligned with client strategies.

Curt's extensive client experience includes AMD, AT+T, Alltel, Bayer, Blockbuster, Cisco Systems, Dell, Garmin, Helzberg Jewelers, Learjet, McDonald's, NEC, Russell Stover Candies, Sonic, Sprint, Symbol, Thrifty, WalMart and Viking Range.

Curt is a graduate of the University of Illinois (graphic design and advertising) and the University of Southern Mississippi (advertising and graphic communications).

 

Brandt Parker

Technology Director

Brandt provides technical leadership at Milkshake. In this role, he oversees the architecture, design, development, integration and execution of all Milkshake web solutions — encompassing everything from document and content management systems and online stores to highly collaborative social networks and tools. In addition to traditional technologies, he has extensive experience with a variety of open source approaches including Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP, Python, and Ruby on Rails.

Brandt has over ten years of interactive experience. Prior to joining Milkshake, he launched the Golfsmith.com initiative as part of Golfsmith International, Inc., a worldwide leader in the golf component and retail industry. Brandt earned a BA in Journalism from the University of Houston.

 

Sara Carter

Finance & Operations Director

Sara came to Milkshake from ORIX Capital Markets in Dallas where she was a senior financial analyst. At ORIX, Sara was responsible for daily treasury management and company budgeting/forecasting for a multi-billion dollar company. Prior to ORIX, Sara was a financial consultant for Pricewaterhouse Coopers, LLC, where she consulted on financial systems at multiple companies across the United States and spent a year in the London office consulting on a large banking project. Born and raised in Austin, Sara received a BBA in Finance and Economics, Magna Cum Laude from SMU's Cox School of Business in Dallas and is a member of Austin Ad Fed.