Melinda Mettler
Director of Advertising

Melinda Mettler started her career in Advertising as an Art Director at Young & Rubicam in New York. Among her accomplishments there, was the much acclaimed "Movie Campaign" for Jell-O Pudding featuring Bill Cosby as Rhett Butler, as the Godfather and the sheriff in "High Noon." Y&R promoted her to Vice President Senior Art Director and created a position for her in their San Francisco office. During her tenure at Y&R/SF, the office doubled in size and billings.

Ms. Mettler has worked on Adidas, AT&T International, Brita Water Filtration Pitchers, Con Agra Turkey Selects, Diamond Walnuts, Eastern Airlines, Hidden Valley Ranch Salad Dressing, Japan Airlines, Jell-O Pudding, Kentucky Fried Chicken, Liquid Plumr, Pozzi Wood Windows, The Rock and Roll Museum, Sanka Coffee, Shanti Project, SONY, and Sunmaid Raisins.

Ms. Mettler holds awards from the Cannes Film Festival, The One Show, The Andys, the Clios, The London International Show, The Effies, Se Habla Espanol, and The SF Show. She also has three campaigns in the permanent collection at the Museum of Broadcast in New York. Ms. Mettler earned her BFA in Advertising Design at The Academy of Art University and, in 1992 was named Alumni of the year.

Nelson Leung
Associate Director of Art Direction

After receiving his BFA in 1992 at the Academy of Art University, Nelson Leung landed his first job two hours after stepping off a plane at JFK. As an art director at Griffin Bacal, he created campaigns for Milton Bradley, Hasbro, Nerf, and Discovery Zone Playgrounds.

Six months later, he returned to San Francisco as an art director first at Goldberg Moser O’Neil then at McCann Erickson. In 1997 he moved to Chicago to work for award-winning boutique agency, Eisaman, Johns and Law, but was soon lured away by Leo Burnett. Five winters later, Mr. Leung returned to California to work in-house with DCShoes. While there, he worked with athletes such as Danny Way, Dave Mirra, Bruce Irons, and Rob Dyrdek in sports ranging from motocross to surfing. He came home to San Francisco in 2003 to Dae Advertising, an agency that specializes in advertising for the Asian Market. At this time he also started teaching for the School of Advertising at the Academy of Art University.

During his career he has worked on a variety of accounts, from AT&T Wireless, Safeway and California Grapes to Chicago Wolves Hockey, Valvoline, Kahlua Liqueur, General Motors, Oldsmobile, McDonald’s, and the United States Army, to The Greater Chicago-land Chevrolet Dealer, Wells Fargo, Southwest Airlines and Albertsons. Mr. Leung has been honored by the Chicago Creative Club for his creative for Chevrolet and the Chicago Cubs. He's also won the General Motors Alpha Award for Best Campaign.

Mark Edwards
Associate Director of Copywriting

Mark Edwards has been a successful, award-winning copywriter for more than 20 years. His work has been recognized in shows as diverse as The One Show, the Addys and the Direct Marketing Association’s Echo Awards.

His career took off when he landed a coveted position at the legendary New York agency Ally & Gargano. A freshly-minted University of Texas graduate, Mark found himself rubbing shoulders with his industry heroes, people whose work he had studied mere months before. From there, he moved onto Grey where he quickly excelled in direct marketing becoming a vice president and associate creative director at age 30. Next he transitioned to San Francisco and joined the management team of local agency M. Gould & Co. He helped transform it from an independent shop with a dozen employees into the west coast hub for McCann Relationship Marketing with over 500 staff members and worldwide creative responsibilities for McCann’s largest client Microsoft.

Mr. Edwards has had work appear for some of the world’s best-known brands, including Aetna, AMD, Apple, Bank of New York, BMG Entertainment, Charles Schwab, Chase Manhattan Bank, DeBeers, Dove, Dunkin’ Donuts, EMI Records, Harry Winston, Intuit, Lucent, Microsoft, Saab, Showtime, Sony, Starbucks, Sun Microsystems, Time Warner and Wells Fargo.

Charles W. Kouns
Associate Director of Account Planning

Charlie Kouns was formerly at the Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU) Adcenter, the nation’s leading two-year graduate advertising program. As head of the school’s strategic track for six years, Charlie pioneered the creation of the Adcenter’s account planning curriculum.

While there, his students had the highest hire percentage in the school (98%). During three of the past five years, his graduates have been awarded the American Association of Advertising’s “Pick of the Litter” Award, the nation’s most prestigious award given to account planners with less than three years in the business. He was nominated twice by the VCU School of Mass Communications for the VCU School of Humanities and Sciences Professor of the Year.

Before joining the Adcenter in 1999, he founded WorldCom, a company with the mission to build stronger communities through communications. WorldCom focused predominantly in two areas: working with companies to develop values-based brands and helping non-profit organizations in creating entrepreneurial marketing initiatives.

Charlie has received numerous awards, including a Gold Quill from the International Association of Business Communicators (“Best Internal Branding Campaign” in the World), and a Silver Anvil from the Public Relations Society of America.

Marguerite Lutton
Full-Time Instructor

Marguerite Lutton has over 17 years experience as an Art Director. She has worked at many of the top Bay Area agencies including Anderson & Lembke, Foote, Cone & Belding, Hal Riney & Partners, JWT-Tonic, McCann-Erickson, and Miller-Huber. In addition, she has maintained a successful freelance practice.

Her background covers the gamut of contemporary communication: ambient, business-to-business advertising, direct response in a multitude of forms, guerilla, graphic design, identity and brand building, new and interactive (online) media, outdoor, product packaging, point of sale, print, television, and more.

Her clients have included; Amazon.com, Bank of America, Blue Shield, Boys and Girls Clubs of America, Carnation, Charles Schwab, Citizen Cake Restaurants, Goodwill, GM Saturn, Hewlett-Packard, First Hawaiian Bank, First Union Bank, Hotmail, Jelly Belly, Levi’s Jeans, Match.com, Microsoft, Oracle, Oral-B, Peet’s Coffee, 3Com, Sun Microsystems, Wells Fargo Bank, Sprint PCS, and The AIDS Emergency Fund, among others.

Her awards include; British D&AD, multiple silver and gold Pioneers, Print Magazine, and How Magazine. And lastly, The Kellog’s “Stick up for Breakfast Contest” two years in a row (1976, 1977) where she won her first Atari game set. She is a graduate of New York’s “Fame” school, the High School of Music and Art and holds a BFA from SUNY Binghamton.

David Wong
Full-Time Instructor

Originally trained as an architect, David Wong graduated from the University of California at Berkeley. After spending a decade designing everything from elderly housing to airports, David shifted gears and went into Advertising. He attended the Academy of Art and quickly developed an advertising portfolio.

In 1989, he won the prestigious Gold Pencil in the Student One Show Competition. He was quickly snapped up by Geer DuBois Advertising in New York. From there he went to the Philadelphia office of Earle Palmer Brown. Then he came home to San Francisco and agencies such as McCann-Erickson, Darien & Kilburg, Hampel/Stefanides and Foote Cone & Belding. In 2002, he took on the role of Group Creative Director at Schadler Kramer Group Advertising, Las Vegas.

Over the years, his accounts have included AT&T Wireless, BASF, Borgata Casino, Resort & Spa, Fantastic Foods, Gordon Biersch, Jaguar, Laguna Seca Raceway, Montage Resort & Spa, NEC, Omni Hotels, Philadelphia Daily News, San Jose Sharks, Sony, Taco Bell, Togo’s, Turner Broadcasting, Wells Fargo, and Wolfgang Puck restaurants.

David’s work has been recognized in the One Show, Communication Arts, Graphis, the LA Art Directors Show and the SF Show.

Ted Roberts
Online Coordinator

Ted Roberts is a writer and editor with a great love of advertising. As the Online Coordinator for the School of Advertising, he is responsible for building, editing, and project managing online advertising classes at the Academy of Art University. Ted comes to the Ad School from AAU's Cyber Campus, where he worked on a variety of online courses as a Content Manager and Editor.

Ted came to San Francisco in 1995, an exciting time when the online world was beginning to grow wildly. In the past decade, he has been an editor for Wired magazine, a marketing communications and PR manager for Millward Brown Interactive, a content manager and developer at Third Age Media, and the voice-over talent manager at JE Talent.

Prior to his arrival in San Francisco, Ted worked in communications for the Planned Parenthood Federation of America in New York, and in marketing communications for Investment Advisers, Inc in Minneapolis. He holds a B.A. in English from the University of Iowa.