From Playwright to President: A Brief History of CI

I grew up in San Diego and graduated from UC Santa Barbara with a degree in English. After college, I moved back to San Diego and started working in Qualcomm’s marketing department. At the time, it was a dynamic start-up company with less than 300 employees. After four years, I decided to pursue some creative writing goals and moved back to Santa Barbara, CA where I wrote and produced a play and had the obligatory day job of waiting tables.

The play was titled “Other People’s Dreams” and was performed at the Center Stage Theater in Santa Barbara. The story was about two struggling playwrights who were so far Off-Broadway they were in Syracuse, NY. After years of not finding success with their artistic theater scripts, one of the writers submitted a very commercially appealing play to a well-known producer who had rejected all of their previous attempts. The producer had artistic aspirations of his own and offered the writers a Faustian bargain to write a new play and tell everyone he wrote it. Everyone got what they deserved in the end.

After the play, I moved back to San Diego where a friend at Qualcomm reasoned that, if I could write a play, I could write a manual. I became a technical writing contractor, which segued into additional copywriting duties. In 1999, we legally incorporated Consistent Image Inc. and also started providing technical writing, graphic design, and project management services for Sprint Wireless. Since then, we have continued to work with Sprint and Qualcomm providing a variety of writing and creative services and have also worked with Sony VAIO, LG, Denso, Swisslog Logistics, Legrand, and other multi-national corporations.

Our current staff includes creative directors, project managers, technical writers, copywriters, and a Ph.D. in biology to work with life science companies. Our future plans include continued, sustainable growth in both the high-tech and life science industries, while retaining our current client roster and building new corporate partnerships.