The Researcher and Student

Always a student. From earning two college diplomas to achieving an MBA in Community Economic Development from Cape Breton University and a PhD in Place Branding from Queen's University, with several certificates along the way and two underway (CFRE and French Level B) — I am a true believer in lifelong learning.

Doctoral Research

My PhD dissertation on Place Branding — Platform Placemaking Machines — ties together my interests and experiences in urban development and marketing by investigating the impacts of user-generated content and perceptions on place branding. The research sits at the intersection of digital media, urban identity, and community-building strategy. The brand framework and methodology from this work has been used for the University of Victoria's brand study, a comparative brand study of Engineering programs in Canada study and the City of Ottawa - Why Ottawa brand brand study.

Master's Research

My Master's thesis, An Employer's Perspective on Teaching Essential Employability Skills in Higher Education, has garnered multiple citations and been showcased at several conferences. During those studies, I explored topics including social capital, innovation, local entrepreneurship, and the intersection of social media with economic development, along with the traditional MBA curriculum.

Explore my full academic profile on Academia.edu.

The Book

After an energizing conversation with a great friend and colleague, Matt Hutcheon, we co-authored a business book: Trucker Management: Driving ANY Small Business to Success (ISBN-10: 0595462715). The book offers easy-to-implement routines and practical tools to help small business owners "drive" their businesses towards success — modelled from the long-established practices used by truckers to safely and effectively drive their rigs to their destinations.

Our book has taken us to Scotland, Ireland, Turkey, British Columbia, and throughout the US to deliver keynote presentations and workshops on small business management.

Research Projects

Race cars and Robots: Brand Differentiation in Engineering Education in Canada 2025.

Consuming Authenticity: In search of an ‘authentic’ brand. International Place Branding Conference Proceedings / Book of Abstracts 2022. Peer Reviewed.

Cities after COVID: Resiliency is about embracing the crisis as part of a new brand story (The Conversation, July 2021).

University Neighbourhood Brands: From coalition-led to user-generated and the tensions between them. 2021 AMA Marketing + Public Policy Proceedings, June 2021.

The ROI of digital engagement in non-project organizations. (St. Lawrence College, CONII, 2014).

Digital engagement and community sentiment regarding the North Block Redevelopment using novel social listening metholodogy (City of Kingston, 2013)

Using social media to solve talent shortages in a hyper-competitive labour market. (St. Lawrence College, CONII, 2011).

Textbook Reviewer

Frost, R. D., & Strauss, J. (2012). E-marketing. Pearson Education.

Vitale, R. P., Pfoertsch, W., Giglierano, J. (2011). Business to business marketing analysis and practice. Pearson Education.