Meet the Pins.
It’s an oft-repeated phrase: Our people make the difference. But at Hairpin Communications, our people are different. (You’re not hiring a team of actuaries, after all.)
We’re all senior-level professionals. We bring different talents and different perspectives to the table, gained through a rare mix of nonprofit, business and government experience. We complement and challenge each other. And if you’re trying to take your organization’s brand somewhere new, that’ll make all the difference.
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Burton Glass
Marketing Strategist
Burt does the strangest things. To relax, he hangs out at the Barnes & Noble magazine racks. At the beach, he reads books on brand positioning and Web site usability. For fun, he critiques bumper stickers he spots for pith and clarity.
Not surprisingly, these quirks led Burt to work for causes that appreciated his obsession with communications. He directed press relations for Physicians for Social Responsibility, Peace Action, League of Conservation Voters, and Pacifica Radio. He served as executive director of the Center for Investigative Reporting, helping produce award-winning documentaries for television and radio. He did his time in government, too, as a speechwriter and press officer for President Clinton’s community policing project in the U.S. Department of Justice.
While a senior vice president at Fenton Communications, the country’s largest PR firm for nonprofits, Burt acquired a taste for helping others communicate better. Soon, he established Hairpin HQ in small town Virginia, where strangely his obsessions go largely unremarked.
Robert Hamilton
Principal, Art Director
Robert got his start over twenty years ago during the final days of mechanical boards and hot wax machines at Polese Clancy, a fine Boston design firm. By day he'd learn the brutal truth of creating annual reports for banks and other above ground institutions. And by night he'd discover the pleasure/pain principles behind the design of rock album covers. These were the years that Robert developed his skills as a designer, art director and sometimes even film and video director.
But too many days stuck in the spray-glue booth pushed him to the pavement to start his own freelance career. Looking back and balancing the merits of all of the stuffed corporate shirts against the shaggy-haired droolers, Robert (or "Bob," as his friends would by now affectionately be calling him) decided to focus his work on things he found loosely "significant" while not overly "stupid."
It was when Robert met Kristen Hughes, that he knew he'd found the perfect accomplice for creating a company with the goal of doing great work for people who are doing meaningful work in the world. Hamilton Hughes and Hairpin Communications were born.
Robert lives in Boston and spends far too much time downloading pathetically obscure music.
Kristen Hughes
Principal, Art Director
Kristen has been producing inspired and thought-provoking print, interactive and branding communications materials for over 12 years. Her daily grind looks like this: after some wise words for her two kids, a double Sanka and a quick but thorough look at the Times online, she's at work taking on the missions of her clients as she works with them, offering atypical energy and dedication to each job. Her obsessions; political justice, emotional insight and honest feedback.
Before co-founding Hamilton Hughes Design and Hairpin Communications, Kristen worked meaningful spells as an inner city teacher and an art image librarian at Harvard's Fogg Art Museum. She spent her glorious college days at the Massachusetts College of Art and the University of Massachusetts at Amherst where she studied Journalism. She has never failed gym class and was once a vegetarian. About every three years, she thinks she needs glasses.
Rob Brookman
Writer
Rob is the resident copywriter and Hairpin’s only known Chicago Bulls fan.
Following an early and idealistic foray into politics, Rob quickly abandoned the grueling labor and long hours of speechwriting for the equaling grueling (but more remunerative) labor and long hours of advertising. In 1995, Rob left the employ of others to fend for himself as the proprietor of Pen & Inc., a freelance writing concern that fared far better than any of his friends or family might have expected.
During his 20 years, he has worked with scores of for-profit and non-profit clients as diverse as Getty Images and the Make-a-Wish Foundation of Northern Illinois, Nuveen Investments and Chicago Public Radio, High Sierra Sport Company and the Music Institute of Chicago. He considers such professional schizophrenia a positive.
A Chicago native, Rob lives with his dog Guthrie and a mild case of hearing loss occasioned by large doses of live music. If you call him, please speak up.