About Ellen

MARKETING COMMUNICATIONS + TRAINING

Ellen Peniston

Ellen Peniston, CPSM

Marketing Specialist | Proposal Coordinator | Pursuit Rockstar

My marketing journey began in construction, and I simply couldn’t stop there. I NEEDED to know more about the industry. While working at Shaffer Creative, I have had the opportunity to collaborate with all sides of the AEC industry, and I couldn’t love it more. Working with a team that is excited and passionate about what they do awakens a competitive drive in me that I have never seen before – a ‘Can’t stop, won’t stop’ attitude. I enjoy leveraging dedication and ownership for commitments to strategically build compelling proposals, presentations, and marketing materials.

When I’m not collaborating with awesome pursuit teams to create proposals, you can find me hiking or camping through the Ozarks with my husband and our sweet pupper, or searching for Taylor Swift concert tickets! I might also be scrolling through airline apps, just in case I find a cheap flight to (INSERT COOL PLACE TO VISIT WITH YUMMY FOOD) or spending time with my crazy family.

My ideal start to the weekend: Sleeping in and drinking a great cup of coffee on Saturday morning!
My favorite hobby: I love hiking, camping, and anything outdoors.
What I’m best known for: Won’t clock out until the job is knocked out.
My favorite vacation destination: Is it fair to say I don’t know yet?? BUT the number one place on my vacation list right now is Steve Irwin’s Zoo and then over to the Great Barrier Reef in Australia.

Connect With ELLEN

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Over the last couple of years, ESA has emphasized more visually impactful proposal development, and Julie Shaffer has been our partner along the way. Her trainings around the importance of graphic design and layout have turned the heads of team members who had previously not put as much emphasis on this part of proposal development. She also developed a completely new, user-friendly InDesign proposal template and user guide for us, incorporating bells and whistles many of our team hadn’t even seen before. In fact, Julie’s mastery of the program is evidenced by beginner InDesign users diving in and delivering proposals within a matter of weeks of the template being completed! We are thrilled with the direction our marketing and graphics efforts are moving towards, and it simply would not have been possible without Julie on our team. She’s a pleasure to work with, and I can’t wait for our next project together. Thank you thank you thank you, Julie

Jocelyn Seltenrich
Communications Manager
ESA | Environmental Science Associate

Julie has helped us to develop proposals over the past year. I admire Julie’s ability to make InDesign workflows efficient by doing something once and then keep reusing them throughout the proposal development. I was most interested in learning how Julie did this and enrolled in her Intermediate InDesign class. I walked away with a treasure box full of Julie’s shortcuts and tricks, which will make me more efficient when using InDesign.

Laura Weber
Lane Construction

After initially engaging Shaffer Creative for strategic proposal development, we also discovered their strengths in additional marketing/communication services for Southland’s rebrand including creative design, strategic positioning, new brand standards, and collateral design. These combined efforts have yielded award-winning results with significant impact to our company footprint – bidding size has increased by 100 percent, bonding capacity has doubled, and teaming invitations have increased by 32 percent.

Rachel Sackett
Southland Holdings, LLC

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