Team Members

Strategic Communications, Writing, Editing, Visuals and Design

Ed Lallo, CEO and Founder, Newsroom Ink

A communicator with a strategic view of the role communications plays in organizational effectiveness, Ed Lallo is a veteran of media relations, marketing, internal and external communications, photographic communications, public relations and political campaigns.

As a photojournalist, he traveled for clients to places Google has yet to map. Successes include annual reports for ExxonMobil, IBM, OneOk, DuPont, Berkshire Hathaway, and Atmos Energy, as well as editorial work for People Magazine, Bloomberg, CNN, American Profiles and the Discovery Channel.

Taking “brand journalism” to the next level led to the founding of The News Group Net, a partnership that developed the dynamic online newsroom concept. Staffed by professional journalists, this new online newsroom offered companies a strategic approach to telling their stories from a perspective only they could tell. The online newsroom became an essential tool in the enhancement of a company’s brand value.

“Proof of Concept” of the dynamic online newsroom came with successes that included award-winning newsrooms for Imperial Sugar, Cargill/LSR Refining and the Louisiana Seafood Promotion and Marketing Board.

The Imperial online newsroom became the “source site” for sugar industry news. It reshaped the face of the global sugar industry with new sugar refining safety and manufacturing innovations.

During the height of the nation’s worst oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, The Louisiana Seafood Board’s newsroom gave voice to an industry when no one was listening. LouisianaSeafoodNews.com spoke to international press, legislators, federal and state agencies, as well as the White House’s Oval Office.

The online newsroom is not a web address but a daily interaction between a company and it’s various audiences: press, stockholders, employees, analysts and even critics. Having a dynamic online newsroom is like inviting readers into your house so they can see everything at a glance. It, openly engages audiences, tells the brands many stories, paints a picture of the uniqueness of an organization and brings it all to life with great images.

Newsroom Ink takes the dynamic online newsroom to the next communication level.

Life is a journey with countless stories all along the way. Some can be told by words alone. The most compelling, though, are those punctuated with striking images that call you back time and again. They keep stories fresh and alive in the readers mind.

Executive Communications, Strategic Communications and Writing

Springfield Lewis – Vice President of Strategic Communications

Springfield Lewis is a recognized expert in business communications for FORTUNE 100 companies and other organizations. His communications and marketing career spans journalism, corporate, online agency and consulting work.

He’s helped develop and drive best practices cited by PRWeek, Melcrum Internal Communications and the Executive Communications Council, part of the Corporate Executive Board. They encompass leadership communications, employee engagement and organizational storytelling – as well as creating strategic content and dynamic online communications.

Lewis is a co-founder of The News Group Net, which created the awarding-winning ISC Newsroom (iscnewsroom.com) for the Imperial Sugar Company. The new website proved instrumental in giving the Sugar Land, Texas, company a powerful voice in the industry – improving its reputation as ISC rebuilt its operations after a tragic refinery explosion and fire.

Taking a journalistic approach, The News Group Net produced credible news stories about Imperial Sugar’s commitment to employees, customers and partners. The coverage highlighted its growth, product innovation and industry leadership in new worker safety and manufacturing processes.

These stories offered a more balanced view of ISC’s business in search engine results, which typically displayed negative reports about the refinery disaster. This “brand journalism,” as it’s called, became a steady source for stories picked up by mainstream media.

In the corporate arena, Lewis is a former director of communications for Harris Corporation, a $5B global information technology and communications leader. He also ran an in-house marketing agency and led executive, enterprise and internal communications at EDS, a $21B technology services company that became part of Hewlett-Packard in 2009.

His career includes communications and marketing leadership roles at IBM’s national and global operations in Atlanta and New York.

Before IBM, Lewis worked as a journalist for The Cincinnati Post, Rocky Mountain News and other media. He stepped back into his reporting role while on EDS business at Ground Zero during the 9/11 World Trade Center attacks. The Cincinnati Post published his eyewitness account of the tragedy.

Today, Lewis partners with Newsroom Ink and consults with FORTUNE 500 companies, small businesses and nonprofits to architect their communications and tell their stories well.  He also speaks about the importance of strategic storytelling, content development/packaging and digital communications at industry events and institutions – such as Yale University and Southern Methodist University.

Gordon Curry – Writer, Editor, Business Strategist

Gordon is a proven communications professional whose corporate experience spans diverse industries that include food manufacturing, retail sales, consumer electronics, health care, defense and IT services industries. Companies that boost thought-leadership raise brand visibility and engage employees.

His versatility is reflected throughout a wide variety of work – news stories, corporate messaging, online newsrooms and executive communications – for well-known and respected brands such as Imperial Sugar, Hewlett-Packard, EDS, JCPenney, RadioShack and the Boy Scouts of America.

Over a 25-plus-year career, Gordon has created executive communications for six chairmen and CEOs – as well as dozens of other senior executives of FORTUNE 500 companies. Always a student of the business, Gordon’s pragmatic approach to his work aligns whatever communications he is creating with an organization’s goals and desired outcomes.

While employed at EDS, Gordon served as the U.S. lead in developing an award-winning storytelling program, which ultimately engaged 118,000 employees worldwide. He also proved instrumental in crafting change-of-control communications around the largest acquisition in the IT services industry – Hewlett-Packard’s purchase of EDS.

For the past year Gordon contributed weekly news features, executive profiles and employee stories to the Imperial Sugar Newsroom as the company reshaped the face of the global sugar industry – with new worker-safety measures and industry-defining manufacturing innovations. He was influential in helping the Imperial online newsroom become the “source site” for sugar industry news.

 

Technology Solutions

Tony Cecala, Ph.D. – Vice President of Technology

While at Yale University, Tony Cecala earned two masters and a doctorate in Psychology. Tony was responsible for developing accounting software for the Yale’s Psychology department and became Yale’s first online software librarian. After graduation, he took a position at Texas Instruments in the “user-systems engineering” group where he designed both software and hardware systems for TI and presented research to upper management on trends in IT.

Mel Ristau and Tony co-founded Visual Interface Architects (VIA), a software development and consulting firm. VIA designed user interfaces and software for Fortune 500 companies, government and educational agencies (including NASA), and private clients nationwide.

As a member of the Newsroom Ink team, Tony is a business strategist specializing in technology solutions. He designs, develops, and optimizes online newsrooms and websites. Especially proficient in WordPress, he is the organizer of the Dallas/Fort Worth WordPress Meetup group.