SIGNS OF THE TIMES is proud to present our inaugural Women in Signs Award winners, a showcase of six women who display their signmaking talents at locations dotted across the US and Canada. Our call for entries requested women who excelled in ownership/management, design, fabrication, installation, sales or marketing, while noting that potential honorees should also be affecting positive change within their company, industry association or sign-associated philanthropic organization. And wow, did the sign industry respond!
Over 300 submissions were tallied in the end, with the field reduced to 18 impressive candidates by Signs of the Times Editor-in-Chief Mark Kissling and Managing Editor Grant Freking. Those 18 candidates were then refined to our six winners on a points-based system by our esteemed panel, comprising four women dynamos in the industry: Mars Bravo, owner of Signs from Mars (Los Angeles); Maggie Harlow, CEO of Signarama Downtown Louisville (Louisville, KY); Teresa Walker, CEO/owner of Image360 Tucker (Tucker, GA) and Teresa M. Young, president/CEO of Sign Biz Inc. (Dana Point, CA).
In end, the chosen six are Heidi Tillmanns, national signage manager, Trans Canada Trail (Montreal); Patty Soria, vice president of production and co-owner, Signtech (San Diego); Elizabeth Minaise, project manager and partner, SignCraft Premier Identity Solutions Inc. (Roseburg, OR); Nancy Wilde, “sign-tist,” Wayside (Vernon, BC, Canada); Marissa Cianciulli, owner/sign writer, Super Signs (Philadelphia, Los Angeles) + motion picture sign writer (Los Angeles); and Dawn Tiritter-Bent, president and owner, Signarama Huntington (Huntington Station, NY).