Shelly Blake, President
Shelly has been in the marketing industry for over 20 years. Her expertise in direct marketing helps her to consult with clients in list management, direct mail design and processing. She strives to provide the best service and support and enjoys working directly with customers to help develop effective marketing campaigns. Shelly received her certification as a Mail Quality Control (MQC) Specialist with the United States Postal Service and has retained her certification through all of the changing postal standards. Shelly received her Bachelor's of Arts degree in Marketing and Communications from Angelo State University in San Angelo, TX and has received certifications in UNIX with Shell Programming through Harper College and her CTM certificate with Toastmasters International.  As a business owner and integral member of her community, she is actively involved in the Palatine Business and Professional Women (local chapter of BPW/USA) organization and was president of the organization in 2006-2007.

Shelly likes to spend time with her husband and their two kids. She also enjoys scrapbooking, movies and reading books (suchas books by F. Paul Wilson, Janet Evanovich and the Twilight Series).

Ian Blake, Vice President Database Administration/IT
Ian is The Mailing Department’s technology guru. He has been in the computer industry for over 20 years working as a Database Manager and Administrator. Ian is a Mailpiece Quality Control Specialist with the United States Postal Service integrating clients transaction database systems with the US Postal Services presorting software and PostalOne Systems. He can handle any conceivable kind of database, including Sybase, Oracle and Microsoft SQL Server. Ian uses his database and hardware expertise to constantly update The Mailing Department’s database services, saving clients time and money.

Ian enjoys spending time with his family and his hobbies include downhill skiing and racing sailboats on Lake Michigan. He looks forward to the Chicago to Mackinac Race each year.

Anna Zaworski, Customer Service
Since Anna Zaworski joined The Mailing Department in April, 2006, she has become an essential part of the team. With 13 years of experience in quality customer service, Anna has an exceptional ability to interact with clients. She possesses excellent multi-tasking, problem solving data processing skills.

Anna has completed the certified training in BCC Mail Manager 2010 software program and has mastered Postalsoft Desktop Mailer. She also is a certified Mailpiece Quality Control (MQC) Specialist with the United States Postal Service, having completed the training in March 2007. Her willingness to continuously learn about all aspects of the mailing process allows her to provide real quality service to The Mailing Department’s clients.

Anna enjoys spending time with her husband and their two college-age daughters.

Karri Wilharm, Customer Service
Karri Wilharm comes to us from the printing and graphic design industry and has a background in customer service and many aspects of marketing. This enables her to plan and engineer even the most complicated marketing programs from concept to mail drop date.

She can enrich TMD’s base of expertise by drawing from a broad range of technical skills and knowledge including: designing for print – including paper selection, diecutting, and other complex customization procedures; project planning and engineering of marketing programs – including enhancing the benefits and avoiding the pitfalls of personalized direct mail programs.

In addition to learning the technical aspects of mailing list processing and postal regulations (there are many!), she is looking forward to the challenge of renewing her marketing skills by writing blogs, newsletter articles, and direct mail brochures for TMD. And, Karri composes most of our variable letter files for print by utilizing her knowledge of graphic design software.

Among Karri’s favorite things are: her cats Jet & Shadow, summer days (with an ice cold beverage), music, movies, and video games.