Cam Bishop serves as CEO of Ascend Integrated Media. Prior to partnering with TGP Investments and returning to Ascend, Cam worked as a high level media consultant with Clearview Resource Group. He consulted for a diversified base of clients including serving as interim CEO for Hallmark Magazine, an 800,000 circulation consumer magazine owned by Hallmark Cards, Inc.
Cam served as President and CEO of Intertec Publishing Corp. He spent 24 years there serving in such integral roles as Division Vice President, Publisher, Marketing Director and even began his career there as a copywriter after graduating from the University of Missouri – Columbia School of Journalism.
Professionally, he has been recognized as one of “Folio: 40 Most Influential People in Publishing and was featured for five consecutive years in Crain’s BtoB Media Business Magazine as one of the “Media Industry’s 100 Most Influential People”.
Cam and his wife Vicki like to spend time with all of their kids. His three are grown and out on their own. Her two girls are active in high school and college events. He also likes to paint acrylic abstracts. As an avid tennis player, he can be found on the court virtually every Saturday morning where he’s played with the same group of guys for nearly 20 years. When he has a chance to vacation, it’s either to the beach or blending fly fishing with snow skiing in Colorado.
Tim Nass has been with Ascend Integrated Media for almost 20 years with the responsibility of client retention and acquisition. Prior to joining Ascend, Tim worked in the entertainment industry managing and representing musicians and comedians. One notable success was Virgin recording artists Shooting Star which was the first U.S. band to be signed to Richard Branson’s U.K. label. Tim managed distribution, promotion, and marketing for the Shooting Star catalog in the U.S. through both CBS Records & Geffen Records during the Virgin contract.
Tim attended Kansas State University and majored in marketing. He lives in Overland Park and has two children, twins Megan and Zachary. He is an avid competitor in handball and squash and attends many regional and national tournaments.
Tricia works closely with both medical and non-medical associations developing custom event media such as daily newspapers, directories, mobile apps and eMedia solutions. She has 15 years experience in b-to-b publishing, advertising and marketing. Tricia worked in several capacities for Primedia, prior to joining Ascend. She was a regional account rep for the Electronics Source Book in Irvine, CA and then St. Louis, MO. She was also a marketing manager and graphic designer for several magazine titles at Primedia.
Tricia graduated from the University of Missouri-Columbia School of Journalism, with an emphasis on advertising and fine arts. She and her husband, Dan, live in St. Louis with their 2 daughters, son and fourth child on the way. Tricia loves to paint and garden.
Maria Arnone has 15 years of magazine publishing and advertising experience, with an emphasis in b-to-b communications. Prior to joining Ascend, she led her consulting company, Maria Arnone & Associates, serving media companies and associations, including Wicks Business Information, Wiesner Publishing, and the American Society of Interior Designers. Her corporate publishing career has included tenures as Group Publisher at Mercor Media and Primedia Business, overseeing all areas of operations, including sales, marketing, content, circulation and production.
As Publisher of Primedia Business’ Telecom Business she relaunched an acquisition requiring complete restaffing, a redesign of the magazine, circulation, marketing and sales effort. She has held various Associate Publisher and Marketing Director titles over publications in the apparel, electronics, and telecom fields.
Maria holds an MS in Magazine Journalism from the William Allen White School of Journalism, at KU. She and her husband, Andrew, live in Lawrence with their two little boys, Alexander and Lorenzo. She speaks fluent Italian and teaches “Italian for Travelers” courses at Au Marché, a gourmet store in Lawrence.
At Ascend, Eric works predominantly with non-profit organizations to help them communicate effectively with their clients, donors and volunteers. He enjoys bringing innovative ideas to organizations to help them build awareness in their desired communities.
Eric Jacobson has nearly 30 years of publishing and media experience, having worked for 27 years at Penton Media (formerly Primedia Business and Intertec Publishing Corp.) before joining Ascend in early 2010. During his career, Eric served in various magazine publisher and vice president roles, and for 13 years led a business development, acquisitions and divestitures team that completed more than 50 media transactions.
Eric has a B.A. in Journalism from the University of Michigan and a M.S. in Journalism from the University of Illinois. Eric also earned an MBA from Keller Graduate School of Management.
Eric’s passions include traveling, movies, music, exercising, mentoring and volunteering in the community. Eric’s favorites include: deep dish pizza, mint chocolate chip ice cream, carrot cake, Motown music (heavily influenced by his growing up not too far from Detroit, MI) and laughing with friends.
Scott manages all aspects of the electronic media (eMedia) department, also known as Ruby Digital. He has been in the technology sector since he earned his B.S. degree in Computer Science from Kansas State University and his MBA from the University of Kansas. He spent 17 years with Hallmark Cards, Inc moving from IT Developer to IT Director where he handled the implementation of the Sales Force automation and launched Hallmark’s first B2B eCommerce site. Prior to joining Ascend in 2006 he also spent three years directing the electronic media efforts for H&R Block. In his occasional spare time he enjoys spending time with his wife and their two daughters, Samantha and Erin.
Kate oversees all print purchasing, venue distribution and manages our internal Project Management team. Since joining Atwood Publishing (the predecessor to Ascend Integrated Media) as the original owner’s first employee in 1983 Kate has been providing the utmost in customer service and publishing experience to the company’s clients since the very beginning.
Kate has been married to her husband Mike for nearly 30 years, almost as long as she’s been an employee here at Ascend. They have two daughters Rachel and Hannah and also their beloved family dog, Booger. Kate spends her extra time volunteering at school events, boating, attending school sporting events and spending time with family.
Rhonda’s career includes 23 years with Intertec Publishing Corp where she served as Associate Editor, Managing Editor and for 18 years, Editorial Director of Wireless Review. She has also served as Editor-In-Chief for Wireless Week Magazine. Rhonda earned her B.S. in Journalism from the University of Missouri – Columbia. Upon joining Ascend in 2008 Rhonda took the role of Director of Content where she oversees all areas of content development from layout, to design, to copywriting, and medical editing, all aspects of content creation and communication.
Rhonda’s passion for the printed word has been cultivated and nurtured by her University of Missouri-Columbia education, her cub reporter days under the tutelage of seasoned editors, her decades-long editorial directorship for wireless technology magazines as well as a fruitful freelancer experience.
Her passion for the printed word also now extends into eMedia, mobile and social media, art forms unto themselves.
She describes herself as a selective Virgo. She’s exacting when it comes to all things editorial. She treasures the power of the written word, the beauty of a well-constructed sentence and the emotion of an impactful headline. In the early days of cellular, she readily admits that texting pained her, but now she can go acronym and phonetic with the best of them. However, if her housecleaning were a sentence, its verb tense would be wrong and the punctuation would be missing.
Her passions outside of work? Most sporting activities as long as they do not require leaping from extreme heights or night-diving the water’s depths. She has a voracious appetite for movies, music, books and plays. Besides world peace, her only other wish is to uncover more hours in every day.
Missy Ling brings more than 23 years of progressive financial experience to her role as Chief Financial Officer with Ascend. She began her career in Big 4 public accounting, then held senior financial positions at The Walt Disney Co. and Fox Sports in Los Angeles. Based on her performance, Missy was honored with entry into Disney’s esteemed talent succession program.
Prior to joining Ascend, Missy served as an Executive Team Member and VP of Finance and Operations for a Kansas City advertising agency where she was integral in installing a new financial management system.
She received her BS in accounting from Missouri State University and earned her MBA from Rockhurst University in May 2012. She also is a certified CPA.
In her spare time, Missy enjoys traveling and really appreciates a crisp California chardonnay.
As senior managing editor, Greg oversees Ascend’s team of editors, writers and photographers that develop content for client newspapers and websites. He spent more than a dozen years working for daily newspapers as a reporter, covering government, schools, police and court beats; as a news editor, overseeing production of daily newspapers; and as a managing editor in charge of a newsroom and the editorial page.
In 1991, he joined Atwood Publishing, which later became Ascend Media, and has been a writer, photographer, page designer, editor and project manager. He has worked on almost every one of the company’s daily newspaper projects in that time, covering a variety of medical specialties as well as business topics ranging from hardware to computers and food to communications.
As the father of five, he has spent an unnecessary amount of time over the fenders of their cars — and the occasional classic — a labor of love (and necessity) when facing dental and college bills. His penchant for figuring out how things work carries over to Ascend’s computer and photo equipment, which can be handy — and occasionally a hindrance — when working on newspapers and websites on the road. His favorite parts of the job are beating tough deadlines, seeing researchers presenting work that could change our lives and hearing topical speakers addressing the hot issues of the day.
Darren most recently served as group publisher of four professional-facing brands in allied health care specialties: Plastic Surgery Practice (plastic surgeons), Sleep Review (pulmonologists, neurologists, sleep doctors and allied sleep professionals), RT: For Decision-Makers in Respiratory Care (pulmonologists and allied respiratory care professionals) and 24x7 (biomedical equipment specialists working in hospital environments). Advertising clients included device manufacturers, service providers and pharmaceutical manufacturers. His responsibilities involved complete brand management, including sales and financial oversight, editorial strategy, marketing and audience-development oversight for print and electronic platforms.
Darren has worked in health care media since 2003 and has been in the business-to-business media environment since 1987. He began his career as an editor, then migrated to publication marketing, sales, sales management and publication management positions, primarily in the electronics and telecommunications market. Among the titles he has managed are Cellular Business, Mobile Radio Technology, Wireless Review, RF Design and the WirelessWorld Conference and Expo.