Allison Dugan has served the Valley SBDC as a Business Advisor and has been recently promoted to Assistant Director.  Allison started her work with the SBDC as the Program Manager for “What’s Cooking – The Business of Food,” a community-wide initiative to celebrate food-related businesses and entrepreneurs in Harrisonburg and Rockingham County. She is a Growth Wheel Certified Business Advisor on the SBDC team with a special focus on helping clients with Marketing Strategy. She is a NASBITE Certified Global Business Professional with knowledge in trade and export. Allison currently serves as a BOLD Leadership Mentor with the Harrisonburg-Rockingham Chamber of Commerce and began her term on the Board of Trustees as Treasurer with the Harrisonburg-Rockingham Historical Society in 2019. Learn more at https://www.valleysbdc.org/ or contact her at duganaj@jmu.edu or 540-568-3227.

Karen Lawrence is a writer, publicist, and media consultant to small businesses, entrepreneurs, and nonprofits. She developed her company’s hands-on approach to outsourced marketing following years in the public and private sector, where she realized smaller organizations and business could benefit from targeted assistance in determining how and where to tell their story most effectively. The KLCreative Media method utilizes solid communications tools like email newsletters, social media, website content, outreach, media releases, and in-house training to build a company’s brand identity among customers, stakeholders, employees, and in the community. In addition to her communications and management experience, Karen is a former Army officer, a published author, a past nonprofit board president, and an active volunteer in community development projects. Visit www.klcreativemedia.com or contact Karen at karen@klcreativemedia.com, 540.466.0059 for more information.

Christine Schmidt is the founder, owner & operator of Social Bug Digital Media. She is a JMU Alumni (Class of 2011) and a Baltimore native who moved to Virginia in 2012. Christine has been passionate about building a safer and productive digital world for business owners, non-profits and charities since 2012. Christine specializes in digital marketing, website design & development as well as search engine optimization. Christine has been fortunate to work with a handful of local businesses as well as some industry leaders from Adobe, Oracle, Cisco, and SAP. Learn more at www.socialbugmedia.com or contact her at socialbugdigitalmedia@gmail.com or 443.850.3517.

Jeslyn Stiles is a JMU School of Art, Design, and Art History alumni who is most well-known for going unexpectedly viral in 2011 with her Tumblr blog, “Cats That Look Like Ron Swanson.” Before joining the HDR team as Director of Marketing in March 2019, she spent four years working as a digital and content marketer in Northern Virginia, where she has discovered a passion for the small business community. Jeslyn will be starting her MBA program at JMU in August and is excited to be back in her hometown, getting to know the Harrisonburg small business community. If you’re a small business in downtown Harrisonburg, keep Jeslyn in the loop with your events, promotions, and news! Email her at jeslyn.stiles@harrisonburgva.gov.