Raised in Oxford, Mississippi, Jeremy moved to and fell in love with New Orleans shortly after graduating cum laude from University of Mississippi with B.A. in Journalism in 1991.
He began his career with an inside view of New Orleans politics as a public information officer for then-Mayor of New Orleans Sidney Barthelemy, working closely with the media, the mayor and top administration officials and producing a weekly half-hour public television series for the mayor’s office focusing on current issues, city departments and special events.
From 1994-1996 he developed storytelling, project management, production and problem solving skills as a producer, first assistant director and production coordinator on commercials, music videos and special interest projects in New Orleans’ burgeoning film and video industry.
At the same time, he also led a diverse team of programmers, writers and graphic designers to build NewOrleansOnline.com for the New Orleans Tourism Marketing Corporation, the non-profit leisure tourism marketing agency for the City of New Orleans. In addition to managing the overall project, he handled content development, information architecture and new media for the site through launch and in the years that followed.
In 1998 he co-founded DIG - Digital Innovations Group - one of the first production houses in the region to offer video streaming via the internet. There he produced video projects, developed rich media websites and managed online marketing campaigns for a variety of clients including Harrah’s New Orleans and Dickie Brennan Restaurant Company.
In 2001 he was asked to join NOTMC full-time as Director of Interactive Media, where he led a new team to capitalize on the shift toward web-based travel planning. There he managed content, strategy, usability, online marketing, search engine marketing, analytics and more for NewOrleansOnline and a number of niche sites.
During his tenure at NOTMC, he helped grow the in-house e-mail database list from a few thousand members to over 380,000 targeted double-opt-in subscribers, garner and hold the #1 position for keyword “New Orleans” in Google for over 4 years, and build a steady stream of over 3 million site visitors a year.
Post Katrina, he’s continued to work with NOTMC as an online marketing and strategy consultant and hotel industry liaison and help new clients navigate the changing landscape of new media and social networking. He regularly attends national conferences and summits on usability, inbound marketing and web analytics and recently became a Marketing Experiments Certified Professional in Landing Page Optimization.
Additionally, he’s served as a consulting producer to the acclaimed 2007 film, Left Behind: the Story of the New Orleans Public Schools, and Conversations With Artists, a 2009 documentary about art and bohemia that follows six New Orleans artists through a year in their lives.