Briana Fahmie

Program & Events

From her teenage years, Briana knew that she wanted to be within the chaotic world that was events. Whether it was weddings, parties, or meetings, she knew her type-A organizational energy needed to get out into the world and bring other people’s celebratory visions to life. California State University, Chico was just the place to expand her techniques to approaching client relations, brand focused experiences, and to even impress that Recreation Administration & Event Management majors can crush Finance and Calculus courses.

Briana’s background and focus on the customer experience, paired with her obsessive attention to detail and organization, has allowed her to excel in the event industry, as well as create memorable experiences for Lightspeed clients. She continually becomes the go-to girl to get s*@! done.

Growing up in the Bay Area and going to college in Northern California, Briana knew travel and seeing the world would be the key to happiness and fulfillment. When she’s not selecting the most delicious menus for her clients, she’s extending her travel on a quest to taste all the cacio e pepes of the world. There also isn’t a Coca-Cola out there that she’d turn down.

Rob Johnson

Managing Director

Rob is a passionate advocate for smart marketing and sharp communications that help cut through the clutter to deliver a real, measurable impact for people and organizations.

Rob has particular expertise in interpersonal communications, and is recognized for his ability to breakdown complex realities into simple, memorable and actionable pieces, helping CEOs and other executives from Fortune 100 companies to small businesses craft their strategic vision, strategy and messages.

The marketing and communications consultancy Rob founded, Lightspeed Marketing Communications, is focused on helping customers empower their marketing and communications efforts by marrying traditional strategies with the latest trends such as social media, video and mobile.

A native Midwesterner, Rob cut his teeth in the world of journalism working in both print and broadcast media before making the jump to the corporate world. Rob is married with two German Shepherds, lives in the Raleigh-Durham area of North Carolina, and has adopted many Southern traditions such as fried okra, taking naps, and SEC football.

Bryan Meyer

Event Operations

Bryan leads event operations and registration development for Lightspeed. He manages vendor deliverables and oversees all logistical components.

Event logistics responsibilities include leading client event marketing teams in event strategy, planning, and execution. He plays an active role in budgeting, financial management, and process improvement.

Registration management responsibilities include registration framework development, process management, housing and session management, financial management, reporting and administration and on-site deployment. His background includes managing event registration and event management for eBay, Cisco, Juniper Networks, Samsung, McAfee, NetApp, AVAYA, and Facebook, to name a few.

Erin Huckaba

Creative Director

Erin is an award winning, professionally trained, speedy visual problem solver who specializes in multimedia graphic design. As our creative team lead, Erin directs the creative talents at Lightspeed to create unique, detail infused, in-house solutions for a growing list of businesses of all sizes. From concept to design, to execution she is dialed in to make sure our clients’ brand integrity and marketing goals are successful.

It started with crayons for a child who loved anything artsy. From there it was onto Appalachian State where her affection for art turned into a passion for design that led her to becoming our creative lead. Her artistic expertise extends from multimedia graphic and web design production to painting and screen-printing. Erin’s love for the arts extends to her husband, family, friends and dogs, but also onto items only a true artist can love such as acrylic paint, Smashing Magazine, and funk music.

Billy Matiernan

Director, Events

Billy is a master of many things at Lightspeed Marketing. If he were bread, he’d be the Wonder Bread brand. He is the ultimate party facilitator. He is our event ninja.

From intimate customer meetings with top executives to 3,000 person conferences to on-line virtual events, Billy is the mastermind behind our event strategy and logistics business. Billy has his hand on the pulse of the meeting and event industry. His experience, combined with his creativity and knowledge on the latest trends enables him to produce award-winning events that drive real, tangible results for our clients.

A true North Carolina native, he is the state’s self-proclaimed #1 fan. Billy lives in the Raleigh-Durham area with his wife and two Great Pyrenees. When he isn’t busy facilitating great events for our clients, he can often be found on the curvy back-roads of North Carolina atop his Ducati Monster.

Suzanne Walburger

Registration Services

Some people are born to crush it in the events industry. When Suzanne was young her mother told her, “I don’t know what it’s going to be but when you grow up, you’re going to manage something complex and you’re going to be great at it.” Well, her mom was right! Suzanne is Lightspeed’s event registration, housing, and customer service guru.

Suzanne came to Lightspeed with an extensive background in high-level project management with both private and public organizations. She’s proven herself to be an experienced leader with demonstrated capability to manage complexity, growth, change, and team development with a sincere dedication to process improvement, quality, and results. Suzanne is detail oriented and has an easy-going, welcoming nature and genuine interest in others. These characteristics enable her to share her expertise and offer a superb level of service in a professional yet congenial manner with unsurpassed attention to detail. She is extremely adept at establishing effective working relationships with diverse, uniquely talented, and sometimes quirky groups of people to foster collaboration toward mutual goals, enhance program offerings, adhere to project schedules, and deliver an exceptional outcome for clients.

As a native Californian, Suzanne loves the outdoors and is blessed to live within reasonable biking distance to the beach. When she isn’t head-down managing large registration and housing projects, she can be found outside listening to music while gardening, biking, hiking, or cruising around town in her 1970 VW pop-top camper bus.

Todd Walker

Data Manager

When it comes to wrangling data and making order from chaos, Todd Walker hasn’t met a cat he can’t herd.

From his beginnings in photography and video, Todd transitioned to data management. This unique perspective and creative background gives him a better understanding of the importance of UX when dealing with data. For over a decade as a Filemaker developer, Todd has helped organizations transition from non-existent or antiquated data management systems to modern full featured applications. He understands that, like Lady Gaga, data management systems need to constantly reinvent themselves. And he’s just the meat suit for the job.

Todd holds degrees from UNC-Chapel Hill Radio Television and Motion Pictures and The Brooks Institute of Photography. He currently lives in Hurdle Mills, NC with his Wife, 2 kids, 1 dog and too many cats. In addition to photography and scuba diving, Todd is also a Master Beekeeper.

Carlos Rodriguez

Graphic Designer

Born and raised in Lima, Peru, Carlos is passionate about his craft as a graphic designer. Whether keeping up on the latest trends in the ever-changing world of digital design or bringing a client’s complicated vision into crystal clear focus, Carlos puts his full energy into his creative efforts.

That same passion follows him out of his virtual office where he enjoys live music, soccer (futbol as he knows it) and traveling with his wife. Fluent in both English, Spanish and guitar, Carlos can often be found grooving to the latest reggae rhythms.

Heather Hefner

Graphic Designer

Heather worked in public relations for nearly five years before going back to school to pursue her passion, graphic design. Her design skills are enhanced by her background in public relations where she learned to pay attention to detail without losing sight of the client’s overall business goals. Her nickname at the PR firm was “Grammar Hammer,” and she now channels that enthusiasm for accuracy and precision into her creative work.

Prior to joining team Lightspeed, Heather spent a decade working as a graphic designer for web design, PR, marketing firms as well as small businesses and nonprofits.

Both NC State grads, Heather and her husband cheer for the Wolfpack. They live in the country with their two daughters and dog, a Sheltie mix. Heather leads her church’s youth group along with her husband, volunteers as a portfolio reviewer for Wake Tech each spring, and cultivates her creativity through antiquing, crafting and drumming.

Michael McDaniel

Web Developer

Whether it’s front-end or back-end development, the database or server layer, Duke or Carolina, Michael is comfortable working across the full technology stack thanks to over a decade worth of development experience (and being an Appalachian State University alum).

A North Carolina native, Michael spends his free time as an ambitious, if decidedly amateur, home chef, a connoisseur of all things horror and Sci-Fi, and a spoiler of pets.

David Ulrich

Events & Tradeshows

What do you get when you mix an obsession for office supplies, a pension for perfectly crafted spreadsheets, spending weekends and holidays away from family, delivering on impossible last-minute requests from clients and the enjoyment of a good, cold, hours-old meal from room service? You get David Ulrich.

Ever since volunteering for his first event in 2003, David was hooked. That passion turned into an exciting career traveling the globe delivering high-touch event experiences to client and attendees alike. His motto is “you’re only as good as your last event so always bring your A-game!” That he has done for major cruise lines, the auto industry, pharma, airlines, finance and even agencies throwing things into space.

Where on earth (or space) shall we go next?

Jesus Flores

Executive Production Manager

Jesus F. has over 40 years of Hospitality and Customer service experience.

A true client partner Jesus began his career as a Hotel AV Manager supporting the San Ramon Marriott Hotel, continued as a rental manager in the Silicon Valley and was assigned as Account Manager with AMD a year later. Prior to joining Lightspeed Jesus supported Cisco Office of the President and Executive Staff on events like Cisco Sales Meetings, Cisco SLO Conference, Cisco All Hands, Cisco Partner and Cisco Live events. He was also Production Manager supporting multiple yearly Cisco Advisory Board Meetings Worldwide working in conjunction with Cisco Event Marketing.

In his spare time Jesus enjoys fishing, good wine and just relaxing with close friends and family.

Paige Mitchum

Web Designer

With a love for digital creation, Paige specializes in creating cohesive, responsive designs for the web. She enjoys taking her designs from concept to execution. As a Winthrop University alumni, she has a B.S. in Digital Information Design with a concentration in Interactive Media.

When she’s not browsing CodePen or searching for the perfect typeface, Paige spoils her two cats, catches up on true crime podcasts, levels up in her favorite games, and plans trips to the beach.