Management Team
Gary A. Jones ∙ President and CEO
Gary Jones has experience in all aspects of the broadcast advertising industry. After graduation from Drake University (‘71 BA Journalism) he joined Leo Burnett Co, Inc., the industry’s leading full-service advertising agency. After five years of ad agency experience, Mr. Jones moved to the TV station representative side of the media advertising industry, working for Petry Television and TeleRep for a combined 11 years. Thereafter, he joined a fledgling program syndicator, Clayton-Webster Corp (later Olympia Broadcasting) as a Regional Manager developing sponsors in the Midwest territory. Innovative new national sponsor tie-ins were created, some of which continued for more than 15 years. A decision was made to launch Jones Communications Group in 1991.
JCG provided advertising, consulting and media planning/buying services. It became apparent that the direct response industry was the niche where Mr. Jones’ nearly 30 years of advertising industry experience could make a difference. Jones Communications Group began to concentrate on direct-to-consumer television advertising, and eventually changed its name to Lincoln Media in 2001. Lincoln Media now serves many clients for all their television direct response marketing needs. Additionally, LMS has marketing partnerships with several of the nation’s largest infomercial ad agencies and wholesalers, for the purpose of extending their clients’ TV exposure via “pay-for-performance” placement.
Mr. Jones is married to his college sweetheart, Linda, and they have two grown daughters.
Laura Ballinger ∙ Manager, Media Relations
Her careful attention to detail and excellent communication skills (she is also an English Professor at a local community college) are appreciated by everyone that has the opportunity to work with her.
Laura began working at Lincoln Media September of 07. Her interests in Media and Advertising emerged while attending Augustana College in Rock Island IL. It was there she earned her bachelors degrees in Speech Communication and English. During her time at Augustana, she focused her senior research project on the portrayal of women in advertising. She also focused her studies on communication in the economic order. Laura further pursued her interests in communicating through writing while earning a masters degree in English Literature at De Paul University in Chicago IL. Currently she has combined her passions for writing and advertising utilizing both skill sets at Lincoln Media as an account manager, and at the College of Lake County in Grayslake IL, as an adjunct English Instructor. Laura teaches her students to examine argumentative points of view in advertising with an emphasis on direct response.
As an account manager, Laura is responsible for maintaining contact with clients, call centers, dub houses and stations in order to get products on air. She takes pleasure in merging her writing and advertising interests when composing sell-in pieces about new products to stations. She also collects call data and reports counts to the stations each week, keeping them informed of how well certain products are doing. Always with the best interest of the client in mind, she will advise stations on how they can switch up their rotation for the best result for everyone.
In her free time, Laura enjoys spending time outdoors training for and participating in short distance races. She also enjoys taking ballet classes, designing and making jewelry and catching up with friends and family.
Holly Kim ∙ Operations / General Manager
Holly’s “dot.com” background serves Lincoln’s staff and clients well. Since automating our data gathering and reporting process - which minimizes human error and improves overall efficiency – her I.T. experience and skills have been a daily help for staff and clients. Upbeat and positive – with a great sense of humor, you will enjoy interaction with Holly as much as we do!
Holly’s entrepreneurial background began from childhood, when neighbors would open the door to find her selling her mother’s necklaces, and anything she could find in volume. While attending Northeastern Illinois University, she was part of a group of students chosen by Daewoo International (The Automotive Group) to fly to Korea, tour their facilities, and assist in the USA product launch. She brings to Lincoln Media an extensive background and a depth of experience in Dotcom and Startup companies.
As Lincoln Media’s “Swiss army knife”, Holly has the responsibility to be sure the company is running smoothly from an operational perspective. In addition, she provides varied solutions to Stations, Clients and Distributors. Thinking beyond her official duties; Holly implemented several new initiatives at Lincoln, including FTP Call data transfer, data format standards and conversion to Network/Online presence. Sensing a lack of development in the company’s Performance-based Spanish TV affiliates, she started the Spanish PI efforts at Lincoln Media Services.
When not at work, or logging in from Vacations to work, Holly enjoys fishing, gardening, and hobby farming. She is a member of the Chicago Polar bear club, the Illinois Jaycees and the church Worship Team.
Randy Jones ∙ Customer Service Manager
Randy has a depth of background in customer service, with a sales and service attitude our media and clients appreciate. His is responsible for the maintenance of our performance-based network, treating every media with individual attention to assure they have the best offers available to air.
Randy brings to Lincoln Media Services 30 years of business to business sales and customer service experience with four Fortune 500 companies. After graduating from Western Michigan University in 1976 with a degree in History, and a brief stint as a public school teacher, Randy entered the business world. While receiving several corporate and customer awards for exemplary service, Randy rose through the ranks to become Customer Service Manager and eventually Assistant General Manager with Owens-Corning. For the next 24 years Randy functioned as an inside sales capacity with 3 other Fortune 500 companies.
Randy is an avid historian. His hobby is cataloging grave sites of Civil War veterans (www.geocities.com/randyjones72).
