Contributors
Bringing TiffinTalk to life has involved the efforts of many wonderful and talented people. Here are some of them.
Matiko Mamaladze
Artist - Heart2Heart
We fell in love with Matiko's "romance art" the moment we saw her work, and we are so honored that she created a whole set of original line art drawings in her inimitable style just for Heart2Heart.
Matiko Mamaladze creates art. She also teaches it, feels it, breathes it, dreams it, and finds herself in it. Raised in a family as richly saturated in art as her paintings are in color, this passion was almost inevitable. Her works are enchanting on many levels; they depict beautiful, emotionally vivid stories, played out by characters that masterfully draw empathy from the viewer. Even when she isn’t holding a palette and brush (or just as often, a palette knife), Matiko is immersed in her unique perception of the world – a perception that almost always finds its way onto her canvases. You can see more of her art at matikoart.us
Talia Steinmetz
Intern of Everything
Talia Steinmetz handles assembly and organization as well as working with social media. Her passion, however, is in all things video: filming, producing, editing. She dreams of having better equipment and better performers but works with us anyway.
Talia grew up on TiffinTalk cards and is a walking testimonial of how close they brought her to her mom, Kat, and how much they helped in her critical and creative thinking skills. She’s loaning those skills to TiffinTalk as she trains her service dog, Rory, before she continues to pursue film production in college. Rory's role on the TiffinTalk team? She's contracted for film and photography; but mainly she is a member of the Talia-Rory team – together those two will be world travelers, telling stories through film.
Dr. Chris Dotterer
Photography
Dr. Chris is a retired family doctor, mother & stepmother of 5, grandmother of 6, bonsai amateur (in all the meanings of the word), bird watcher, gardener, and -- as obvious from her photos -- an avid world traveler. She loves languages and getting her hands dirty.
Rose Eckman
Photography
Rose is a retired lawyer who enjoys cooking, gardening, traveling to Paris, and playing with her cat.
Amy Fantalis
Photography
Amy Fantalis (MS, MSW, LCSW) specializes in counseling adolescents and families. She has been in private practice at Building Bridges in Media, Pennsylvania, since 1999. Prior to that, she directed a mental health agency, provided therapy to inner-city youth and families, worked with teens in residential treatment, and conducted home studies for families seeking adoption. Her photos for TiffinTalk feature not only nature scenes, but also distinctive shots of everyday life and -- of course -- more than a few furry family friends.
Nina Gaffney
Photography
Nina Gaffney has tons of photo albums filled mainly with photos of her children, grandchildren, and the occasional vacation. She and her husband, Tom, keep very busy running the family printing company, Archway Press.
Isabelle Fantalis-Gross
Photography
Isabelle Fantalis-Gross is a freshman in high school. She enjoys acting, golf, and photography. She has a pitbull named Riley.
Maurah Steinmetz
Photography
Maurah’s funky sense of humor allows her to laugh even as she is deep into her university studies. As an Environmental Studies and International Affairs double major with a German and Mandarin double minor, she plans to travel and work globally. She has become an amateur photojournalist recording her experiences along the way.
Archway Press
Printer
Ellen Rothwax
Web Designer
Ellen Rothwax has a Bachelor of Science degree in Computer Science and has been designing and developing websites for over 10 years. Employing her creative and programming skills, she concentrates on designing and developing websites, logo designs, graphic arts layout and design as well as photo retouching and manipulation. She enjoys meeting with clients to discuss their marketing objectives and makes every effort to guide her clients to the most economical means of achieving their goals. She especially enjoys captivating a client’s visualization of their ideas and creating the finished product.
The Tidbit Team
Bronte Reidinger, Maurah Steinmetz, and Talia Steinmetz were instrumental in the initial research for the TiffinTalk tidbits. Critical to this work was triple checking facts and not relying on sources that then all relied on a single source making it not incredibly reliable! Also critical: writing to the level of the age group. And finally, most critical: No plagiarizing. These students got us going, provided more themes and it has taken off to critical acclaim.
Other Contributors
Shout Outs
Additional and heartfelt thanks to the following people and organizations:
Carol Block is part of the TiffinTalk family team – literally family team. But she’s not just mom and grandmama, she’s a believer. She’s seen the results of the thousands of cards and the resulting chats that her daughter, Kat, had with her granddaughters. She helps to organize, assemble and fold, fold, fold. On top of all that, she puppy sits and checks in on cats. If she would accept a company title, it would be "Rescuer" because she always comes to our rescue to do whatever needs to be done.
Francis Shields, our former SCORE mentor and now Advisory Board member, guided us down the path of making a dream into a viable and important business, complete with formal business plans and a damnably complete P&L. There was no escaping his careful scrutiny and no amount of appreciation can be expressed in return. In Fran's words, "If you are not in pain while you are developing your startup, then you are not doing it right." Fran, I think we got it right . . . and owww!
Bronte Reidinger ruled the roost as Social Media Intern and Helper Extraordinaire. Innovative and outspoken, Bronte easily saw the potential for TiffinTalk and decided she wanted to be part of the team. She recently took a full time job (elsewhere!) and is redesigning her life as she approaches college with a skill set many would envy. But she continues to volunteer and cheer.
Rachel Kimmel holds a web design certificate from Sessions College and has completed studies in Google Master Certification with MarketMotive. She noted our first site and had the incredible chutzpah (thankfully!) to ask us "What in the world were you thinking?" but she was so subtle and polite that we realized we needed her guidance urgently and were thrilled to have her in those first makeovers; she saw what we were too close to see. She has been working in web design and marketing for over 10 years and is the owner of MICRON.492 Web Design and Marketing, LLC. Working alongside her clients at every step of the design process allows Rachel to better reflect their unique vision while helping them rise above the competition with search engine visibility. End result: beautiful design that is data driven, yet customer focused.
Marc Goodchild bore witness to those first bareboned cards at a cafe in London. He envisioned a market beyond "lunch notes" and gave us the encouragement to create a global company.
Thanks also to . . .
. . . the many mental health professionals who reviewed not just the concept but the content and gave us the thumbs up time and time again.
. . . our families and friends who stood by us as we divided our time quite unevenly between business and family and continued to support our work with TiffinTalk. They love us and still talk with us.
Antonella DeCicci
Past Intern Whom We Miss Very Much
To Antonella DeCicci, our former intern and all around “Young Woman Friday” (and Monday through Thursday), for her discerning eye and for heading up our Packaging and Quality Control teams. Each card handfolded; each box carefully filled; each label carefully placed. Her attention to detail is … attentively detailed. You can see for yourself.