TRANSCRIPT
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Robert Berkeley 0:06
Hello, and thank you for joining me, Robert Berkeley for another episode of Inside Jobs, the podcast for in house agencies about in house agency leaders brought to you by the in house agency forum or IHAF in partnership with Express KCS, who helped those in house agencies who are in the know, do more through outsource production. This episode, we meet Californian John Barnhart, who has started his own agency moved to a major brands in house agency, and then took a right turn left the sunshine state for the real weather of Idaho. John is someone who knew what he wanted to do from the age of 10, which is more than I ever did. I'm 55. And I still have no idea what I want to do. Anyway, we recorded this during the Great plague of 2020. So while we hear about John's personal career, we will also touch on how the lockdown has affected not only his department, but also that of his employer, the university itself. Welcome to the Inside Jobs podcast. John.
John Barnhart 1:07
I am thrilled to be here. I've been looking forward to this since we connected. So let's keep going.
Robert Berkeley 1:14
Okay, well, John, you're an interesting subject for Inside Jobs, because of your background, being a little different from many of the people I've interviewed. We're going to come to, we're going to come to that in a short while but you're director of Credit Services at the University of Idaho, just give us a very broad brush picture of what it is you actually do that.
John Barnhart 1:36
Certainly, we create all of the all of the marketing and communications materials for the University, or the University for the State of Idaho. So we have campuses all over the state and we produce materials, trying to encourage students to come to college. We engage with alumni, we talk with faculty and staff here on campus. So we have a very broad audience.
Robert Berkeley 2:03
Well, we've got the pleasure of learning about your journey to get to that point, which I believe didn't actually start in Idaho. Is that right?
John Barnhart 2:12
Most of my career was in California, but really my whole life in California, worked at the agency worked at Oakley but came to Idaho about three years ago.
Robert Berkeley 2:23
So California born and bred.
John Barnhart 2:25
Yeah, right. Yes, that's correct.
Robert Berkeley 2:27
Sunshine, sand, blue skies.
John Barnhart 2:30
All of the above.
Robert Berkeley 2:31
Yeah. Idaho, less so.
John Barnhart 2:34
Right. A lot less so. Yeah.
Robert Berkeley 2:36
Okay. Well, I am very curious to know how that happened. Let's start right at beginning where were you actually born, John.
John Barnhart 2:42
I was born in Oakland, California. So in the Bay Area, and lived there. Most my life, my parents separated. And shortly after that, my mother decided she wanted to be a history professor. So she put herself through school raising three boys, put herself through undergrad grad school and ultimately became a history professor at California State University, Chico.
Robert Berkeley 3:06
Wow. And how many years did that little journey take her?
John Barnhart 3:09
Well, it took eight years or so. I think. We were pretty young my brothers and I but she was an amazing person. And probably the reason that myself and my brothers are so driven today.
Robert Berkeley 3:23
I was gonna say that single mindedness does that. Was that inherited by you guys?
John Barnhart 3:27
Yes, absolutely. It was. Absolutely.
Robert Berkeley 3:30
Well, you you were fairly, I suppose ambitious from an early age. When you when you were at college, you wanted to be a photographer? Is that right?
John Barnhart 3:39
Yeah, I actually wanted to be a sports photographer from the time I was 10 years old. I remember, the moment clearest can be. What happened? Well, we had just moved to Santa Cruz, where my mother was going to do her grad work. And a just about a half a block from this house we moved into, they were having a bike race, a century race. And I walked down to the end of the street, and I saw these racers just speeding by on their bikes on the city streets. And I ran home and grab my mother's camera. And when they came back around for another lap, and I put that camera up to my eye. I was that was it. I knew from that moment on, I was going to be a sports photographer. And I can remember looking through that viewfinder. I remember the bikes as clear as could be today. Which is funny because the actual photographs didn't come out at all, but I remember it very clearly in my mind.
Robert Berkeley 4:37
Well, you know, having the film ready in the cameras, probably something you come to right afterward.
John Barnhart 4:42
That's right. Yes, exactly.
Robert Berkeley 4:44
I was talking about that film in the camera. Half my listeners actually will have no idea what we're talking about.
John Barnhart 4:49
Yes.
Robert Berkeley 4:51
Actually, I found I found an old real 35 millimeter film. I have no idea what to do with it. It's in his canister. So done. It's mostly been used. I don't know what to do with it, John.
John Barnhart 5:00
Yeah, it is crazy
Robert Berkeley 5:03
So what happened then you you followed that dream through to college to become a photographer and that's what you were studying is that right
John Barnhart 5:09
That's absolutely right so I graduated from college with a degree and kind of in those days what you would do is work as a photo assistant and you work in a few different studios you work your way up from third assistant second assistant first assistant and then you kind of open up your own business and make a goal of it.
Robert Berkeley 5:31
Yeah, so what happened to you
John Barnhart 5:34
Well as I went through that process and opened up my own business things were going great and I was a photographer not shooting a lot of sports but I was making a living and I connected with a person who did some design work and some printing work and we decided to form our own agency and I brought my photo studio into his design and print shop and that's where stylecraft started.
Robert Berkeley 6:03
So how old were you when you started the agency were 25 25 bucks seems relatively young and ambitious to start your own agency as men
John Barnhart 6:14
I yeah but again you know you go back to the way I was raised where it's kind of a no fear mentality my mother had three boys and decided to put herself through college so there was no traditional job organization that I thought I should follow it was really this is what I wanted to do this is what I was passionate about and as it turned out it was a great decision.
Robert Berkeley 6:42
So you you had a business partner in this in founding stylecraft and you presumably felt you were both going to bring customers fairly on did it work out well from the get go.
John Barnhart 6:53
Yeah, it worked out fantastic from the get go.
Robert Berkeley 6:56
That's not the normal story you're meant to say that was five years of sheer hell and dogged determination not yeah we just cruised into easy gig for it from the get go.
John Barnhart 7:03
Yeah, it was a just cash rolling in no it wasn't like that it was it was a lot of hard work of course but we had some great clients and those clients as they grew they brought us along with them so that was really the fortunate part we had some very good clients that were very loyal to us and it it kept us growing and growing ultimately we had over 30 employees at the agency.
Robert Berkeley 7:31
So yeah that was that was around 1990 or something you started starcraft.
John Barnhart 7:35
Yes, yeah right around then a long time ago.
Robert Berkeley 7:39
So and I happen to know you ran that you were there with the same partner was it for 25 years.
John Barnhart 7:44
Yes
Robert Berkeley 7:45
Well you must be an easy guy to get along with or they must be very tolerant one or the other.
John Barnhart 7:51
Yeah, exactly I think there was the ladder.
Robert Berkeley 7:54
Yeah, so was there a division of labor between you.
John Barnhart 7:57
And so when the agency was small we did our own what we were good at so he did design and ran the print shop I did the photography and managed some of the clients but as we started to grow my role changed and I started to oversee all of the creative the photography the printing you know all those parts and pieces and still maintained some sense of photography and some of the projects that look most appealing to me.
Robert Berkeley 8:29
But you have the joys of learning to manage people as you went as well right.
John Barnhart 8:35
Exactly, yeah and those are you know those are unbelievable learning opportunities.
Robert Berkeley 8:42
And challenges too right from time to time absolutely did you do I mean were you aware of things like trying to foster a culture within the organization were you aware how to delegate and certain things like that that 25 on generally hasn't come across.
John Barnhart 8:57
Yeah so you learn those things kind of as you go but one of the most fortunate parts of my career is that some of the brands that we were working with brought me in and I got to see how they operated and how they built a culture how they groomed employees and trained employees and so I got to pick and choose lessons from some of these amazing brands that we worked with and that really helped to shape what I do now.
Robert Berkeley 9:28
Tell us about some of the clients that you picked up along the way 25 24 25 years was it was a long time to running that agency how far did you get.
John Barnhart 9:37
Well again like I said we had some phenomenal clients one of our largest was Asics the footwear and apparel company and when we started with them their sales were less than $200 million domestic in the in the us by the time our agency reached its peak Asics was over billion dollars in sales and to watch your company go through that kind of growth was a fantastic opportunity on my side. So Asics, the footwear and apparel company, we also worked with airwalk, which was a skate footwear company. tailor made golf, Oakley eyewear. We also had a couple of financial clients like Prudential Realty and Experian, credit reporting, and those are some of the companies we worked with. And in all of them, fantastic to learn from.
Robert Berkeley 10:38
Right, right. But twenty five years on from founding the business, how did it How do we come to an end?
John Barnhart 10:47
Well, the other partners were ready to retire. And it it really, I mean, it was fantastic that we had this agency and in, you know, we had over 30 employees, and we get to watch some of these employees, raise kids put kids through college, which is all very rewarding. But Gosh, it's tough to own a business and, and you're constantly challenging, you know, making payroll every two weeks and all of those things. So eventually, it was time to sell the business. And just be thankful for the 25 great years that we had.
Robert Berkeley 11:25
Yeah, so it is a tough call. I'm sure. I mean, I know this from self having started Express KCS with with my partner, Tarik, that, one, it's very hard to disentangle the business from your life and, and deep personalize it as well. Right?
John Barnhart 11:41
It is it is and there were many years where I would be on the road, you know, over 200 days a year, lots of travel. And that takes its toll as well.
Robert Berkeley 11:52
What happened after Starcraft was sold? I mean, did you did you come home and sort of look at the four walls and think what am I going to do now or or what?
John Barnhart 12:00
Well, I had the opportunity to join one of the companies that we had been working with for many years. Oakley, the eyewear company, they were located not too far from our office in Southern California. So I went in and join them as their global director of creative operations.
Robert Berkeley 12:22
Okay, so that was an in house agency they already had?
John Barnhart 12:26
Yes, they had an in house agency in place. Fantastic, amazing group of people, for sure. And I was, I had been working with them, of course on on the agency side, but joining them in house was a real pleasure.
Robert Berkeley 12:42
So tell me a little bit about that. So when you were on the outside, this is quite interesting perspective. Because I don't know many people who've worked for a particular client and then move to that client or run their in house agency. But when you were an outside agency, did you feel that you were competing a lot with their in house agency at the time? Did you feel that? You you'd be pitching for business that they would win by default? Or was there any frustration like that?
John Barnhart 13:07
I wouldn't call it frustration. But there was constantly we were pitching for business that they may prefer to take in house and we thought, oh, we're we're perfectly suited for that project. And and but 25 years of the agency, those things happen, and you don't get yourself down at all. You just try harder and and you keep going with the with the work that you have.
Robert Berkeley 13:32
So when you went across to Oakley, did you then continue relations with? I don't know about Splott Starcraft, but other external agencies? And did you see what they could bring perhaps with more clarity than than someone who just been working in in house agencies could see?
John Barnhart 13:48
Yes. So again, we had sold the agency to a software company, but they maintain that agency and kept it up and running. And when I joined Oakley, we still used stylecraft for some projects. But, you know, what I'd learned on the, on the inside when I was at Oakley is, of course, their their team is laser focused on the brand and and what Oakley meant, but capacity is always a challenge. And that's what advantages outside agencies have. There's much easier to fluctuate their capacity levels with bringing in freelancers. So, as we became, you know, maybe we were working on a campaign at Oakley, we could push some of those projects outside to help us with our capacity inside.
Robert Berkeley 14:40
Okay, all right. So did you have to adjust working for a corporate master rather than working for yourself? I hadn't, I would imagine one would have had to
John Barnhart 14:51
Was a huge adjustment. Yeah, absolutely was I mean, you're right on. And, you know, with the agency, I didn't have a boss. We, yeah, had partners of course. But now you move in house and you've got a VP that you report to and the VP reports to a president and I hopefully I did purchase by a huge company in Italy. So there was that. So those were all great lessons to learn. Of course, we are VP of Marketing at Oakley gave our in house team, a lot of freedom and flexibility. Because we produce some exceptional work.
Robert Berkeley 15:28
But you had a good time at Oakley, but it didn't last very long, unfortunately, I think is that right?
John Barnhart 15:32
I had a fantastic time at play. It really was amazing. You know, of course, I knew them a little bit because of the agency relationship. But actually joining them in house was far too short. I had mentioned that Oakley was purchased by a large company called Exotica, and they decided to move a lot of pride a lot of jobs offshore. So we, our whole team lost our jobs.
Robert Berkeley 15:58
Wow, what sort of size team do you go there? Well, you you seem to indicate it wasn't full service. But what was their area of speciality?
John Barnhart 16:06
Well, the the creative that this team would come up with, was phenomenal. The creative team was exceptional. And, you know, Oakley is, you know, very large global company. And we were serving our offices around the world, and coming up with just phenomenal creative and the product was, you know, iconic the Oakley product. So it was certainly easy to play off. What a great quality product and the culture of the company and the consumer that buys an Oakley product. So that was a great experience. And our specialty was dead. Definitely creative. We had in house photo and video we did not have in house printing, that would be something that we would buy out.
Robert Berkeley 16:56
So that's interesting that you emphasize the creative more than anything, because the biggest criticism leveled at in house agencies is well, you know, you're just not going to be very creative. They're working for the same brand all the time. How do you respond to that?
John Barnhart 17:10
I think that in this case, we had a just a phenomenal team and a culture. It's hard. On agency side, I didn't really understand until I joined Oakley in house, how much the culture dictated the work that we produced the culture at Oakley was very unique. And our creative team lived that culture and from an outside agency perspective, you weren't quite on target you because you didn't understand the culture.
Robert Berkeley 17:46
Interesting. So it did it change your mind when you move to Oakley from starcraft? Did you? Did you have any preconceptions that were changed by the experience of actually working directly for brands in house agency?
John Barnhart 17:58
Oh, absolutely. I did. You know, one of the things I pride myself on on the agency side was the way that I would take our team, our internal team at the agency, and immerse ourselves in our clients or business, understanding their product, whether it be at Asics, going deep into the biomechanics of a runner, or at Oakley the technology that they put into eyewear but what what I learned when I joined, Oakley was the culture is so critical to the work that you're producing.
Robert Berkeley 18:35
Also, in terms of culture, did you find it was a difference in your personal lifestyle moving across to an in house agency from your own business?
John Barnhart 18:44
Yes, for sure. I felt like a, I could take a deep breath, and really focus on the work rather than all of the everything else that comes with owning a business where you're, you're really, you're tied to that business seven days a week, 24 hours a day. When I joined Oakley, I felt like, finally, I could really focus on one client and, and really working with this in house team to see what we could do to up our game.
Robert Berkeley 19:16
Right. So you did but there was a lot of kind of distraction and chatter around in your own when you were running your own agency, right, that you just no longer the other people deal with or just wasn't around, right?
John Barnhart 19:26
Yes, yeah. But you know, at the agency, we didn't have an HR department at the agency. You know, you kind of worked on sales and you worked on working with people in the creative side and you're on a plane and you're traveling to events that you've been producing materials for at Oakley, I really got to sit and focus on the brand.
Robert Berkeley 19:47
Very different, very different, but you brought up a family I think as well while you're at Starcraft. Is that right?
John Barnhart 19:51
Yes, married two kids. Put them through college. I like I said I was on the road. A lot. So I missed a lot of soccer games, but they seem to be very understanding least they speak to me today.
Robert Berkeley 20:07
Well, that's a good thing. So, anyway, you work for us, you say the whole position changed Oakley, everything moved abroad, and leaving you suddenly a year later without any work.
John Barnhart 20:22
Yes, and, and that I think you alluded to this earlier in our conversation, that was the time where I got to look at the four walls and say, Well, now what am I going to do? You know, at this point, the kids were out of college. So it's just my wife and I. And I thought that I would stay in the same industry. I wanted to definitely stay in house. I didn't want to start another agency,
Robert Berkeley 20:47
Or join another agency.
John Barnhart 20:48
Yeah, so I really enjoyed that in house experience at Oakley and I was looking for that opportunity and interviewed many different places, most of them in Southern California, but this opportunity in Idaho came up. And my wife and I talked and said, well, let's, let's see if there's something there.
Robert Berkeley 21:10
So you traveled over to do to go and see the see the place before you decided,
John Barnhart 21:16
Yes, we they flew me in for an interview, of course. And they offered me the position. And my wife and I came up to look around and say, Is this where we want to live? Do we want to move here and didn't take too long to say yes, this is something that we really want to do.
Robert Berkeley 21:37
Well, this is this is this is this is off paste a little bit for the discussion. But what was it that attracted to California to Idaho? Apart from the job, obviously, but But what I've never been there, so tell tell me what what struck you about the place?
John Barnhart 21:50
Well, I had the agency that we had was in Southern California Oakley was in Southern California. And I don't know if you've been to Southern California. Yeah, there's there's no seasons, right palm trees there. They don't change colors. In I'm up here in northern Idaho. And there's definitely four seasons, we had never lived where it snowden. And we kind of like that idea we wanted to see that was like, fall, was it spectacular appear. So it was really the geography and changing up that Southern California lifestyle for something that's that was completely different that appealed to us.
Robert Berkeley 22:30
Absolutely. And then also completely different is working at university, rather than at a global brand, that that also is monumental, it seems monumentally different, is it in fact, monumentally different?
John Barnhart 22:45
It is monumental.
Robert Berkeley 22:47
What are what are the principal points of difference you've had to adapt to?
John Barnhart 22:51
Um, you know, certainly you can talk about, you know, budgets, and you know.
Robert Berkeley 22:55
It's smaller, right?
John Barnhart 22:56
Yeah, substantially smaller. You can talk about, you know, a global reach with open, we're known throughout the world here at the University of Idaho. You don't know much you don't know the University of Idaho, much beyond the borders of Idaho. But yeah, the one major difference is the purpose. It was something that I thought, I was going to like it, I had no idea how important it was to find a place where what we did had such purpose. You know, I'd like to say that I have a lot of pride in the Oakley product, or Yeah, we're on the agency side with Essex. But here, we're literally changing lives. If if some of the materials that we produce, encourage a high school student to go to college, their lives are changed. And that was something that was important to me when I, I thought that's what I would be getting into. But it's so rewarding to know that's exactly what we're doing here.
Robert Berkeley 24:02
So was there was there a big difference in commitment or level of professionalism or level of creativity that you found moving from one to the other?
John Barnhart 24:12
There was, we have a talented team here at the University of Idaho. We have a creative team, we have in house photo, we have what we refer to as digital media. It's essentially our video team. But we also have TV production and Creative Services. And we have in house printing. So all of the team is they're very talented and very dedicated to what we do. But there were so isolated here in northern Idaho, that I don't think that the team is exposed to the same influences that we had in Southern California. And that's been one of the things that I've tried to focus on in joining this team.
Robert Berkeley 24:57
And how do you do that? How do you do that?
John Barnhart 24:59
Well, I'm constantly looking for reference points to what other brands are doing outside of higher education this team knows higher education they've got it what I want to do is let them know that our target audience that high school student we're going to convince to come to the University of Idaho, they're looking at a lot of brands out there and none of them are higher education brands so what I want to do is show my team what those other brands are doing and why they are successful and and what can we take from that in produce in our materials to appeal to this this consumer
Right and so where do you point them towards where do they look for that sort of thing.
Well obviously my background is in you know the athletic side so some of those brands that that I worked with whether it be Oakley are Asics that are doing phenomenal work or others in that marketplace like a nike, adidas, they're doing fantastic work but I'm looking at other brands that this person engages with every day whether it be in some cases fast food brands and how agile some of those brands can be met and
Robert Berkeley 26:17
How do you analyze this with your team then I mean how do you how do you make them think about it and make them learn from from other brands and what they're doing what's what's the actual process you go through
John Barnhart 26:28
Well I'll answer your question by saying that I'm constantly showing them these examples they'll tell you that I'm inundating them with way too much information what I'm doing is I spend a lot of time looking at what these brands are doing and then I send what's relevant to a team member and say hey take a look at what what this brand is doing or look at this photography sample or look at this video editing I think this is very unique on the editing side look at what they're doing with sound design so I'll send messages to team members where it's relevant
Robert Berkeley 27:08
And helping them raise the game is the man.
John Barnhart 27:11
And that's exactly the bottom line helping them raise their game helping them produce product produce materials that really engage with our consumer and that's what I'm trying to do
Robert Berkeley 27:23
So you mentioned you've got a great creative team there and you've stressed creativity all the way right back at Oakley as well and before that but presumably they're in idaho you've got full sort of in house operations as well and you're dealing with your clients who are the university marketers do they have marketers
John Barnhart 27:41
Yes, we have a marketing team here at the University of Idaho and that's really our client, I was very fortunate in that the marketing team that we have here on director of marketing is very open to ideas and suggestions so as they develop a marketing plan they've included me from the very beginning and we kind of shaped that together and I'll provide some reference points of what it's like and in other industries and
Robert Berkeley 28:12
This also helps you plan what your department's doing as well if you've got that insight at that at the neck of the funnel as it were you get a little bit more foresight, I suppose in terms of what's coming down the pike.
John Barnhart 28:24
And that's critical on the side of an in house agency to run an in house agency and not understand what your marketing team is doing is not a recipe for success there's no way that we can manage our capacity if we didn't know what the marketing plan was if we didn't have visibility to a marketing calendar and it is absolutely critical that the in house agency and the marketing team are working very closely together
Robert Berkeley 28:53
So is that your role or do you have project managers or account managers who liaise with the marketing team
John Barnhart 29:00
I I feel that that is so critical to success that that's my role
Robert Berkeley 29:05
So you can see what's coming down the pike there are opportunities for you obviously to manage your team in advance but are you are you the only game in town or or can they or will they go to external agencies
John Barnhart 29:18
And our marketing team is free to go to other agencies we pretty much are the only game in town like I said that here in northern idaho we're kind of remote but we do use an agency that's located in boise just to give you a reference boise is about a six hour drive from where we're located and they help primarily on the strategy side but they do creative development too and that helps our team see our brand from another perspective
Robert Berkeley 29:53
And again you've got that history of being on the outside looking in and then immediately on the inside looking back out again, does that also help you manage your staffs expectations when dealing with a third party agency?
John Barnhart 30:07
I think so I think all of those reference points that I brought when I took this job here help a lot. I know that sometimes the in house team they're like hey what did we get that job and they have to say we have to develop our skills in this area if we're going to be expected to do this type of work this is the agency that we're using in boise they're very skilled here if we want to do that we'd better start working on it.
Robert Berkeley 30:34
I say but there you go the design team do you have dedicated production personnel as well? are they all creatives.
John Barnhart 30:40
Yeah, our design team they are kind of hybrid where they do the production in the creative.
Robert Berkeley 30:47
Got it, okay, all right. So you're trying to encourage them to look around. I think use the word innovation as well in terms of looking for people to up with new ideas. You know, you actually seeing that happening.
John Barnhart 31:01
Yes, innovation is critical and it's something that we talk about as a team constantly and I have seen the team evolve so much since, I joined this team. They've been so open to suggestions and ideas and different ways of working and I'm very thankful that they're they're so open hey california guy what do you do on coming into change and everything but they've been very open to it and I think that we have been innovating and we're producing some phenomenal work right now.
Robert Berkeley 31:36
I can just see you walking through the door with your surfboard under your arm and right telling everyone surf's up right so this has been a three year journey you've had to keep using the word journey this has been a three year stint you've had so far at the University of Idaho a little were you thinking that around this time you would all be forced out of the office and into lockdown due to the coronavirus outbreak how have you managed that job.
John Barnhart 32:03
It's been challenging it's challenging you know trying to work with a team and keep the team focused on what we're doing and keep them together when everybody is working remotely but one of the other challenges that I never would have seen coming up here again in northern idaho is technology and the access to decent internet is very scattered so we have some of our team that don't have good internet fast internet access and that's been challenging we have our video team trying to work remotely using you know what what technology that they have in trying to work with very large video files it's been frustrating to say the least.
Robert Berkeley 32:57
Equally, I presume the flow of workers has slowed right down has made or hasn't it?
John Barnhart 33:01
Yeah, so we do work for here at the university we have 10 different colleges the college of engineering and the college of business college of law so we do work for all 10 colleges as well as overall centralized marketing so you're right students are no longer here on campus the colleges are not producing the materials that they've needed in the past so our design team our creative team things have slowed down for them our video team though has never been busier and I'm kind of thankful for the fact that the president of this university has embraced video as a way to communicate and we've been producing a lot of video content to push out to staff and faculty to push out to alumni and to try to engage new students.
Robert Berkeley 33:58
Video is about signing people up for the new year, is it then it's about promoting that way or is it also video for learning.
John Barnhart 34:06
And so there the video for learning were not involved with that and that was quite a hurdle to get over is to to have all of our coursework delivered through an online source but what we do here in this department is we're really just trying to tell our story and let people know some of the amazing things that we're still doing here on campus here though you're not hearing in person word a lot of research is still happening so it's really telling our story and letting people know what we do to benefit the state of idaho.
Robert Berkeley 34:44
Well these are challenging times I have to say it sounds like you're going to get through it, are you still looking forward to getting back and doing sports photography when it's over?
John Barnhart 34:55
You know I mentioned earlier in our conversation that I would spend a lot of time on the road and that time often allowed me to do sports photography so for many years I photographed athletes for Asics and it could be an athlete running a marathon in london or it could be tennis athletes competing so I got to do a lot of sports photography which is what I wanted to do when I grew up but those days are behind me you know that's kind of tough you're carrying 50 pounds a year for many hours at a time so I'm pretty happy doing what I'm doing.
Robert Berkeley 35:36
Well the photography I have to ask and gonna mention this before but the photography on your website is truly exceptional as well I think he got some really lovely really lovely pictures there I can't believe you didn't have a hand in some of those.
John Barnhart 35:48
Thank you.
Yeah, we have we have like I said a talented team that they're really dedicated to what we do here so it's great to work with a team like that.
Robert Berkeley 36:00
How bad how bad well John I wish you luck with soldiering on through the lockdown and while the whole world is is trying to get through this calamity but I want to thank you very very much for your time talking to us on Inside Jobs about your story, if people want to reach out and talk to you about maybe some of the changes between going from your own agency to an in house agency or going from a large corporate to to something more like university, how can they best get in contact with you?
John Barnhart 36:34
Oh, you can certainly reach out to me on LinkedIn or send me an email right here to my office which is jbarnhart@uidaho.edu. I'm happy to talk to you and thank you for having me, I really appreciate it.
Robert Berkeley 36:50
It's been a real pleasure John, thank you so much. Thank you. What a charming guy John is and clearly a man who's determined to help those around him get the very very best from themselves well here's where I wrap up and say thank you to emily foster of I have for her partnership in bringing this episode and this podcast series to you all Prateek Shrivastava for being such a patient producer and Prerna and Divya of the Express KCS audio visual team for their editing skills are mostly of course I want to thank you for listening and if you've enjoyed this episode you'll find a whole load more at www.insidejobs.org including maybe of interest Jack tubers he's from PWC and he's been advocating remote working for creative teams for a long time and he's worth looking up if you're facing particular challenges with this. Anyway feel free to drop me a line or to connect with me on linkedin and give me any feedback about Inside Jobs and if you have time drop a review on itunes or wherever you get your podcasts and remember to be sure to spread the word about inside jokes till next time.