Welcome to the first edition of Getting To Know Us.  Today we will be introducing you to one of the Team that many of you have had the pleasure of speaking with: Jeremy Williams!

Team Member Stats

Title: Strategic Projects Manager

Hired: Spring, 2010

Hometown: Boston, MA

Account: Jester

I started at COMC in the spring of 2010.  Before I was hired here, I worked for years driving all over the Seattle area as a sandwich delivery guy for an awesome mom & pop company, Sugee’s Box Lunch.  That job not only put me through school but also kept me ridiculously well-fed.  I still go back there whenever I can for a B-L-T or an Italian cold cut sandwich.

If you called or emailed COMC about a year and a half ago, I was on COMC’s customer service team.  As a matter of fact, I was COMC’s first full-time CS employee!  These days, it is my great pleasure to communicate on COMC’s behalf with many of our professional contacts.  Lately, I’ve been chatting with group breakers, comic shops, supplies manufacturers, and many other folks who we’re interested in supporting and working with in different ways for future projects.

I work primarily on the Business Development team helping to roll out new features, develop new relationships, and improve company efficiency.  I’ve had a hand in a lot of our print ads and blog posts; I’m really proud of the recent “checklist” ad that I got to be involved in.

I’ve always been a “jack-of-all-trades” type.  In most places, that ends up being a negative; but in my role here, it’s my greatest strength.  The job is different every day, which is something I love.  I’m really happy that Tim and Julia felt like I was the right fit.

I used to collect gaming cards when I was young.  I gave it up when I realized I didn’t want to haul them around with me for the rest of my life, so I ended up swapping them to a guy for his old broken Honda CB750 motorcycle (I’m pretty sure I ended up giving the bike away to someone else too).  I moved around a lot so I got into the habit of traveling pretty light.  These days all I could say I really collect are song ideas for my side music projects.  Having that old knowledge of gaming cards has been helpful, though, because even though I don’t physically collect anymore, I’ve still made some money flipping on the site!

How many cards would you need to flip for this?

I’ve always enjoyed music, but when I was younger it was hard to break into. Technology has finally reached the point, though, a lot of the barriers to entry are being removed by sites like bandcamp and YouTube. For a long time, I’ve enjoyed the beats and rhythms of hip hop as well as the verbal cleverness. A few years back I started making parodies about things like video games and zombie outbreaks. One of my songs ended up getting pretty popular online, so I started being able to do some live shows.  So far I’ve had a great time.

Encouragingly, the audiences that seem to respond the best are those who aren’t traditional hip hop fans. I’ve done a couple EP’s and I actually just digitally released my first full length album, “Rhymes Against Humanity”.

A friend and I recently launched a country western project as well.  We felt the genre of “country western science fiction” was under-served so we started writing some original songs and adapting some unlikely covers.  We aren’t trying to make fun of country music at all, just use it as a vehicle for exploration and insight.  We’re having a great time with it and the feedback from people has been very positive.  That music can be found here: http://themercifulheavens.bandcamp.com/

COMC is an awesome place to work, and almost all the credit for that goes to Tim.  He really sets in place a culture of honesty and directness that I’ve never seen anywhere else.  He’s so passionate he can really inspire you – anyone who has met him at shows can attest to his energy!  He’s also just a really sincere guy, and as smart as they come.  The team here are the coolest, most down-to-earth coworkers you could ask for as well.  I feel very blessed to have found a home at COMC for my offbeat skill set.

Getting to Know Us

So, we hope you enjoyed getting to know Jeremy a bit better.  As you can probably begin to suspect, there are many unique people on our Team, and over the coming months, you will have a chance to get to know a few more.  Feel free to leave your comments and questions for Jeremy below, and as always, keep up with us on Facebook, Twitter, and our new Google+ page.