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from colleagues & bosses

Owner of Visionwear, Kathleen Speckhard

Austin Gardner is an efficient employee that requires very little managerial oversight. He is driven, professional, and brings a unique perspective to our team.

 

Austin constantly sees opportunities for Visionwear to grow. Through Austin’s efforts, our sales on Etsy have increased by 900%. Additionally, Austin recognized a population of our customer base that was being underserved; the LGBTQIA+ community. His data mining converted this opportunity into both B2B and B2C sales. Austin’s insights increased the sale of Queer Pride items on Amazon from a mere 15 units sold in 2019 to 195 units and counting sold in 2020.

 

Furthermore, Austin drastically improved our brand by performing a custom website audit. He benchmarked our competitors, researched best practices, and provided a professional recommendation to our coders with multiple options and examples.

 

I can confidently say that Austin positively changed our company’s culture, our bottom line, and the global community.

Emeritus Professor Kevin Kelly, Previously Creative Director at Ogilvy

I was so proud of Austin. In a class of hand-picked students selected to compete in the

National Student Advertising Competition (NSAC), Austin stood out. He let me know early in the process that he wanted to be one of four presenters. However, I told him that this was a coveted position that had to be earned. Austin worked hard with the strategic team to solve the most complicated NSAC brief that I had ever seen in my decade as the AAF faculty sponsor. Team BYU tested three strategies with full executions for Adobe’s 2019 NSAC challenge. Each one failed. But Austin and his team didn’t give up and arrived at a strategy that delivered an excellent campaign that regional judges felt was ten points stronger (a very wide margin for this competition) than any of the competing schools. And because Austin did such excellent work and hung in there to the bitter end, he earned the right to present the strategy and the thorough research that accompanied the handsomely executed campaign.

Small Business Owner Cameron Dever

Austin has expertly consulted me on many projects for my photography business and recently, my new clothing brand. He is truly one of the most creative people I’ve ever had the pleasure of working with. I’m always impressed with his ability to come up with amazing ideas right off the bat and work through them.

Colleague Jake Turville

Austin and I were on a group project together and he was truly a dream to work with. He took the initiative to get things set up, then was on top of every step going forward. He was definitely the leader of the group, but did it in a very humble, led by example kind of way. You can only hope to have a guy like Austin on your team. I was super impressed by him. 

Colleague Elliot Evans

Austin and I were partners on a group project for an Organizational Business class. From the beginning of the semester, Austin's take-charge personality made him the de facto leader of the group. He organized numerous meetings to make sure we were on track, and worked tirelessly to ensure a high quality submission. Austin is personable and easy to work with, proving it time and time again throughout the semester as we encountered new challenges. I can personally vouch for his creativity and work ethic. I would recommend Austin as a group member in any setting, without reservation.

Colleague Ethan Johnson

Austin really showed leadership skills and a willingness to work when we were working together on a project on a company called MetaSource. He took real initiative to organize our group and help divide up assignments. His willingness to work hard was shown as he put in extra hours into making and editing the video to promote the company. Overall if you need someone who is willing to do what it takes to help hasten the growth or production of your company; Austin is your man.

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