Who We Are
PETER WALBRIDGE — Creative Director
What do you do if you want to save big trees but are afraid of heights? If you’re Peter Walbridge, you start a ground-based design and ad firm devoted to saving things. Born in New York, raised in Los Angeles, and schooled at Art Center in Pasadena, Peter had five big ad agency jobs in five years. What he learned most from this painful period was what not to do with the rest of his life. Building on ten years of experience as the cofounder and creative director of a similar San Francisco firm focusing on nonprofit organizations, Peter started Big Think Studios in 2005. Creative director, family man, and frustrated carpenter, Peter now resides just 243 steps from his office.
KACINE KROMERY — Account Manager
What would you do if you grew up in one of the flattest states in the U.S.? Florida native Kacine decided to relocate to the hilliest city she could possibly find. By 2005, Kacine had already graduated from the University of Florida, was working at one of the best agencies in the southeast, and had developed a full-fledge love affair with all water sports. Needing to break away from the grueling 16-hour agency workdays, endless cups of coffee, and too many lawn flamingos, Kacine left corporate advertising to become an international kite-surfing instructor in the Caribbean teaching others how to connect with and survive the forces of nature. Even surfers need to buy food and board wax, so Kacine eventually headed for job opportunities in hilly San Francisco. A few interviews later she was working for the best ad agency in the country, helping to sell things like investments, cosmetics, and bottled water (there’s that water thing again). With an aching desire to combine her communications skills and love of the Earth to effect bigger change, Kacine looked around to see how she could take her account management experience and use it to better society at Big Think Studios. Today she gets to be near hills and the ocean and now actually has time to enjoy them.
SUSAN HANLEY — Senior Accountant
An English and Spanish major in college, Susan has worked in the accounting departments at a number of local nonprofits, where she discovered her previously unrecognized affinity for the language of numbers. She is an east coast transplant who has been in San Francisco for close to 20 years—almost long enough to start to miss the sub-zero winters. Almost. This is her second time around as the accountant at Big Think Studios, after a three-year break to study French and alternative medicine. When she’s not crunching numbers, she spends as much time as possible at local dance studios studying bhangra, hip hop, house, and other dance forms popular with dancers half her age.
LAEL ROBERTSON — Office Manager
Lael closed her graphic design office in 1993 to spend the next twelve years doing the hardest and most rewarding job on earth: raising and home-schooling her three great kids. After being a full-time mom, office manager is a piece of cake. Whether she’s answering the phones, managing our database or simply motivating folks to wash their dishes, she does it without inflicting pain. Family has always come first for Lael and the staff at Big Think Studios is just an extension of that. Her big loves are being in nature, dates with her husband and swimming in ice-cold water.
KAREN CAPRARO — Designer
After graduating from the Art Institute of Southern California with a BFA in graphic design, Karen served as an in-house designer for Health Net, did freelance work for Wet Seal, and eventually became a senior designer for SooHoo Designers, a boutique design shop. In 2000 she moved to San Francisco. In her 12 years of design experience, the projects that make her sleep with a smile on her face include branding for the San Francisco Department of the Environment, annual reports for the Energy Foundation, and teaching a ten-week design class to 5th graders in public schools. A New Zealand/English hybrid, Karen likes to spend her free time with her husband and 3-year-old son.
SPIKE LOMIBAO — Designer
Spike has been in graphic design since 1991, collaborating heavily with organizations and companies that value making positive change in the world. Leveraging his experience at Joe Boxer and Harrington Young Design, Spike has offered thoughtful graphic and branding strategies and solutions to Big Think Studios since 2006. He is a graduate of University of California, Berkeley.
BRIAN MACDOUGALL — Designer
Brian has 20 years experience in graphic design. He attended the California Institute of Art film school and earned his BA in English Literature from University of California, Santa Cruz. Career highlights have included working with David Carson and Albert Watson on Levis Jeans and creating collateral materials for ZZ Top. His areas of expertise include graphic production, photography, and video. Brian recently enjoyed building a gate and fence out of redwood decking he recycled himself, and his honors have included being the 2004 US National Grand Master Formula Windsurfing Champion.
SASHA WIZANSKY — Designer
Sasha Wizansky started her career in graphic design when she was 13 and had a job making photostats and creating paste-ups with hot wax and an X-acto blade. She has an MFA in sculpture from California College of the Arts and a BA from Harvard in an interdisciplinary major focused around letterpress printing, bookbinding, and the history of book arts. Sasha has been a professional graphic designer in San Francisco for eight years. She was art director of American Letters & Commentary, a designer at Salon.com, and now publishes and art directs a print magazine about the role of meat in art and ideas. In 2003 she won an AIGA 50 Books/50 Covers award for her miniature, limited-edition book, “Your New Glass Eye.” Sasha started working at Big Think Studios in 2006.
