cre•ate•o•vate [kree-ate-oh-vate]
–verb
1. the act of transcending traditional ideas, rules, patterns, relationships, in order to create innovative new ideas, forms, methods, etc.
Our Mission …and yes, we choose to accept it
Our mission is to shake things up for our clients with innovative design, writing and web development.
It is to bring a mind-blowing personal experience to those who hire us by exceeding expectations and providing them with excellent customer service.
It is to change our community and our world through our actions and ethics, our visions and ideas.
It is to provide our employees with a clean, inspiring place to work that is full of opportunities and loaded with solid benefits.
It is to be honest, fair, and beneficial to all parties concerned.
It is to bring the sexy.
How Aqua Vita Creative Came to Be
By: Jonathan Cox, Owner & Technical Director of AV Creative
In early 2008, my associates and I began working with a non-prof called “Engineers in Action.” They are a hard working, ambitious group of engineers and professionals unified in a powerful cause: To improve the lives of people living in poverty and disease through civic engineering. Our role with them was to use our marketing and development expertise to bring their message to the world, garnering support and funding for them in the process.
A few months into the project, I had a meeting with the founder of Engineers in Action, David Stephenson. We had completed the website a month prior, and they had already begun to receive their much needed donations and inquiries. David was apologetic during the meeting, because he had very little money to offer us. I told him not to worry, that we had never expected to be compensated, and that we were helping him because I believed it would genuinely make a difference in the world.
In reply, David told me, “Jonathan, you just have no idea. Because of the work you’ve done for us, we have enough money to move forward on a project that will bring water and basic civic services to a village of 500 people. 1 in 5 of their infants die before the age of 5 because of a problem in their water that will be fixed by this project. You brought the water of life to these people.”
It was then that I first felt the tugging in my spirit that this was what I was meant to do. I wanted to create a company that would be the water of life for businesses making a difference in the world through their excellence and integrity. And so, “Aqua Vita,” Latin short-hand for “Water of Life,” was born.
Jonathan Cox
Owner/Technical Director
Jonathan’s career in technology officially began in 1995, when he assembled a working laptop from junked parts he acquired from an electronics retailer. From the moment his horrid-looking creation first booted up, he was hooked.
Since then, Jonathan has co-owned a 3D animation and website development studio, a cafe, a ballroom dance club, and Aqua Vita Creative.
He has received awards for business plan writing, has organized national events, is on the board of directors for Engineers in Action, and is heavily involved in Rotary International, managing his club’s website and aiding them in their publicity.
He continues to pursue a bachelors in Finance and Accounting and continuously takes classes in Computer Science to stay competitive in the industry.
His hobbies include programming, writing, martial arts, military history, yoga, hiking, camping, video games and culinary arts.
Jessica Cox
Marketing Director
Jessica began her career in communication by writing articles for Tulsa World and creating a school newspaper for her high school. In college, she put together her first website and email marketing campaign for local non-profit, Oklahomans for Patriotic Values.
After graduating with honors from the University of Oklahoma, Jessica worked as the marketing and publicity director for a Tulsa Internet marketing firm. She coordinated email marketing campaigns, search engine marketing, social media strategies, and online press campaigns.
Within nine years of writing experience, Jessica has created materials for industrial, medical, technical, financial and educational organizations. She has also helped clients land stories in the Dallas Morning News, various trade magazines, and About.com.
Jessica now coordinates online marketing, email, and press campaigns for Aqua Vita Creative and clients. She also volunteers through Tulsa Southside Rotary.
She loves hiking, camping, gardening, reading, writing, and science.
Michelle Pierce
Editor-in-Chief/Word Ninja
Michelle has been writing for the Internet ever since she was 18 and got involved with the University of Oklahoma’s student-run website, the Sooner Information Network. She worked her way up from writing peon to entertainment editor, and graduated in 2006 with a B.A. in professional writing.
She returned to her hometown of Durant, Oklahoma, and went to work for the KLBC Buzz, a local monthly newspaper. She spent her tenure there interviewing everybody from the Bryan County sheriff to the Chairman and CEO of Williams-Sonoma, writing feature stories, and creating advertisements for both print and radio. (She also got roped into a five-month stint as a morning show co-host, but we won’t get into that here.)
She moved to Tulsa in April 2007 and has put her writing experience to use providing press releases, articles, and web content for a variety of businesses, from process servers and insurance brokers to DIY wedding flowers and international soccer camps. Her writing has gotten clients published in magazines, online newsletters, forums, and newswires like Reuters.
When she’s not writing, she’s watching movies, reading up on Greek and Roman myths, memorizing useless trivia, baking cakes at 11 p.m., making her way through her latest stack of books from the used bookstore, or camping out in a horse pasture in Stillwater.
Joshua Lee
Photographer/Director of Sales
Joshua is one of those rare people who actually enjoys public speaking. He’s been doing it since he was just 8 years old, giving 5-minute religious talks to people at his church. He progressed to giving 45-minute speeches on religious themes, and motivational and persuasive talks to groups ranging from 45 to 130 people.
Joshua applied and was accepted for a leadership scholarship to OSU-Okmulgee, where he double-majored in electronics engineering and IT, and completed both of his degrees in just three-and-a-half years. He was the Engineering Technologies Division Outstanding Electronics Graduate for spring 2003, and gave a graduation address in front of 400 people.
He has worked for CompUSA, Cingular, Alorica, ConocoPhillips, and Hillcrest, either selling technology or helping people get their technology fixed.
Joshua plays the piano and the violin and enjoys doing pencil drawings. His passion is photography, which he has been doing professionally for the past seven years. His other interests include music, theater, museums, and history.
Sean Ferguson
Creative Director
Sean Ferguson is a designer and illustrator with a BFA in graphic design from the University of Central Oklahoma. By day he works like a house elf as Aqua Vita’s creative director, and by night he swings around downtown Oklahoma City, fighting crime in blue tights and obsessing over his wandering samurai chicken.
His biggest heroes are Bruce Timm, Mike Mignola, and John Buscema. Illustration is his passion, and sometimes he sleeps with his Wacom under his pillow while he dreams about a house full of IKEA.
Sean also loves reading, and most of his books are falling apart, the spines held together by duct tape and love, each reading yielding another arts and crafts project.
Tom Cox
Senior Programmer
Tom Cox is our software developer and senior programmer, with a prestigious resume of development projects for NASA, REMAX, and US Defense Department contractors.
Fluent in more coding languages than he cares to admit, Tom keeps Aqua Vita Creative on the cutting edge of technology. From artificial intelligence ecommerce solutions to inventory management systems, this man makes impossible digital dreams a reality.
An active Rotarian, Tom also enjoys reading (mostly coding books), loves animals, and cultivates an exotic array of tropical plants.
