Management Team
Dan Solomon
Chief Executive Officer
As a leading expert in the communications industry for the last 20 years, Dan is frequently asked to speak to industry groups and non-technical professionals nationwide about integrating Internet techniques into communication strategies. In December of 2007, Dan co-authored his first book, Media Rules! Mastering Today’s Technology to Connect with and Keep Your Audience, published by Wiley.
Prior to joining Virilion, Dan was publisher of nationaljournal.com, the National Journal Group’s “members only” Web site and was general manager of National Journal’s CongressDaily and Technology Daily. Dan held a political appointment with the U.S. Department of Commerce and worked in senior legislative positions in the United States Senate for Senator Harris Wofford (D-PA) and Senator Daniel Akaka (D-HI). He also practiced commercial law with the firm of Hale and Dorr and clerked for the U.S. Court of Appeals in St. Louis, Missouri.
Dan is a graduate of the University of Michigan and the University of Minnesota Law School.
Shabbir Safdar
Founder
Shabbir is well known for his ability to explain technology in terms that non-technical people can understand. He has been a popular speaker for trade associations, nonprofits, and communications and public affairs professionals. With diverse audiences from the California Farm Bureau Federation to the USENIX Security Symposium, Shabbir is comfortable with audiences of any technological sophistication.
Prior to starting Virilion, Shabbir served as Vice President for Information Security at Goldman, Sachs & Co. Shabbir also established and led the Voters Telecommunications Watch (VTW). VTW broke ground as a Net-based grassroots organization, organizing voters and groups such as the American Civil Liberties Union and the Electronic Frontier Foundation into a never-before seen coalition defending free speech on the Internet.
Shabbir blogs about digital media and public relations at www.truthypr.com.
Huard G. Smith
Executive Vice President
Huard has more than 22 years of experience in successfully creating and linking strategies to execution in branding, interactive marketing, online sales, lead generation and Web customer service. He has worked across many industries, leading large scale efforts with electric and gas utilities, financial services companies, health care entities, travel services, media corporations and retailers.
Recently as a Senior Vice President in the Strategy & Analysis practice of Digitas, Huard led strategy teams for key clients including AARP, the InterContinental Hotels Group, The Home Depot, The New York Times and Turner Broadcasting.
Huard holds a Masters of Business Administration from the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School of Business and Bachelor of Science and Master of Science degrees from the Pennsylvania State University in Aerospace Engineering.
Kathy Wahlbin
Senior Vice President, Account Management
Kathy also has deep knowledge of accessibility and usability issues and solutions. She is passionate about creating a world where online communications and technology are simple and universally accessible to all people regardless of ability. Kathy has spoken on Internet accessibility at national conferences such as Shop.org, PRSA International and the Outdoor Retailers Summit.
Prior to joining Virilion, Kathy was the CEO of RampWEB, a consultancy that worked to turn accessibility requirements into communications opportunities for U.S. and international government agencies and contractors, multi-national corporations that serve audiences around the globe, as well as American companies, agencies and universities that reach people online with disabilities.
Kathy received a Bachelor of Science in Mathematics and Computers from Trent University in Canada.
David L. Haase
Senior Consultant, Director of Editorial Services
David started writing about the Internet in 1996, long before blogging, when he launched a pioneering newspaper column called Plugged-in Politics that was distributed nationwide by Knight Ridder/Tribune News Service. Plugged-in Politics examined how government organizations and campaigns were using the fledgling technology of the World Wide Web and email to deliver messages and sway opinion.
David became executive editor of National Journal Group’s Greenwire online daily briefing in 1999. He then served as Editor in Chief/Director of Publications for Executive Compensation Resources before joining Virilion. Prior to that, David spent 12 years covering Congress, politics and the White House as a Washington correspondent for Indianapolis Newspapers Inc.
A 20-year member of the National Press Club, David has chaired its online awards subcommittee for the last three years. David graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree in International Affairs from Antioch College.
Jason McQueen
Vice President, Media Director
Prior to joining Virilion, Jason tenured in several interactive media firms around the country where he worked with clients ranging from B2B tech giants to Fortune 100 retail brands. He recently worked in Central America as the acting interactive marketing director for SportingBet PLC gaming brands. Before SportingBet, Jason led client engagements in interactive media management —including all aspects of strategic planning, vendor management, execution, measurement and optimization — for nFusion in Austin, Texas, and 360i in Atlanta.
Jason received his Bachelor’s of Business Administration, with a concentration in Marketing, from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Terry Prime
Chief Technology Officer
Terry has 25 years experience in the IT/telecom industries, has lived and worked in the US, UK, France and the Netherlands leading small through to large organizations. He has served at four successful start-ups including VP, Engineering at Lightspeed which was acquired by Cisco Systems in 1998 and became Cisco’s first voice services business unit. While at Cisco, Terry led the R&D of numerous VoIP and web network management technologies and was responsible for delivering voice products that generated over $250M globally.
Terry was VP Engineering at LogicaCMG wireless networks were he led Unified Messaging and Multimedia Messaging Service Center (MMSC) product development organizations. He co-founded nexVortex the service provider for business critical applications where he served as CTO and continues as a member of the board of directors.
Terry holds a BSC degree from Kingston College in the UK.
Michael Meehan
Senior Vice President
Beginning in 2005, Michael served as U.S. Senator Maria Cantwell’s top aide, managing her Senate office and operating as the chief strategist of her 2006 landslide re-election campaign in Washington state. In 2003-2004, Michael served as Senior Advisor in Senator John Kerry’s presidential campaign. Before that, he was the Vice President of Strategy and Politics for NARAL Prochoice America, where he ran the 501(c)3 and 501(c)4 programs.
As a senior political and communications strategist for U.S. Senate Democratic Leader Tom Daschle, Michael served as Director of Message Development and Polling for the Democratic National Committee and as Senior Counselor for then DNC Chairman Terry McAuliffe from 2001 to 2003. In addition to his work at the DNC, Michael was staff director of Senate candidate recruitment at the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee in 1999-2000.
Michael holds a degree from Bates College, Maine.
Lynn Thomlison
Creative Director
Prior to joining Virilion, Lynn was Vice President and Creative Director at CBS College Sports where she was responsible for all CBS College Sports creative direction for both digital and television. While there, she built, staffed and mentored bi-coastal design teams, and developed and franchised an interactive video program which achieved the first ever marketing communications awards for the network.
Before joining CBS, Lynn was the Managing Director at the global public relations agency, Burson-Marsteller. There, she was responsible for the agency’s USA design creative team and supported business development and client relations.
Lynn has won numerous awards including the 2005 Grand Prize Mercury Awards, the 2005 Silver iNova, and the 2005, ‘06 & ‘07 Platinum MarCom Creative Awards.
Lynn holds a Master of Science degree in Design from Arizona State University and a Bachelor of Arts in Business Administration and Fine Arts from the Université de Bishop in Canada.
Tim Smith
Senior Vice President, E-Commerce
With more than 20 years of experience in mission critical secure software and systems, Tim leads the ecommerce practice at Virilion since its inception in September of 2005 when Virilion acquired Promotional Commerce, where Tim was founder and CEO. Since joining the team, Tim has integrated ecommerce and promotional merchandise into numerous campaigns for clients such as Read for the Record, United Cerebral Palsy, and Ed in '08. Since it’s inception, Promotional Commerce has handled millions of visitors and hundreds of thousands of transactions.
Prior to founding joining Virilion and founding Promotional Commerce, he was Vice President Strategic Development and Field Planning for kinkos.com, inc., the Internet arm of Kinko’s, Inc. providing print-on-demand solutions to corporate, small-office home-office (SOHO), and personal customers.
Tim holds a Bachelors Degree in Management and Management Information Systems from Iowa State University. Tim lives near Annapolis, MD with his wife Brenda and two dogs, Rumble and Elsa.
About Virilion
Virilion (formerly Mindshare Interactive Campaigns) is a full-service interactive agency. For more than ten years, we have helped major organizations and institutions transform their ideas and issues into results through digital media.
Virilion is derived from the Latin word for green, viridis, and the word for lion – symbolizing courage, strength and leadership. These words together create “green lion” which is a change agent in alchemy which turns ordinary metal into gold. Our name reflects the value a client will receive by working with our award winning team.
