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Robert A. Deraco, better known to friends and clients as Bobby, is Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Synapse Marketing Solutions, an award-winning digital agency located in Lancaster PA.
Under Bobby’s leadership, Synapse has grown to become one of the largest digital agencies in Central Pennsylvania. Since its founding in 2007, Synapse has earned more than 100 industry awards for its work, won a place on the Inc. 500 List of America’s fastest-growing private companies (#396 in 2011), and has twice been honored as a Best Place to Work in Pennsylvania.
Bobby’s marketing career spans more than two decades as a direct and digital marketer. In his current role, he is responsible for leading, creating, and managing marketing strategies, methods, technologies, and teams that support more than $10B in annual revenue for his clients’ companies.
Prior to Synapse, Bobby was a noted direct marketing copywriter and a top-performing sales professional. He has founded or helped start-up more than a dozen companies and holds US Patents in the areas of user experience & process design for online eCommerce systems.
A strategic marketer, consultant, and entrepreneur with over 20 years of experience, Jeff develops high-performing, measurable, and custom advertising strategies based upon pre-determined business goals. Jeff is a driving force in client satisfaction and is an expert for staying within budget and time constraints.
Just some of Jeff’s many talents include customer acquisition, digital marketing, and professional leadership. As a leader at Synapse, he guides the team through complex and multi-faceted marketing plans and ensures milestones and goals are successfully achieved throughout each project’s duration.
When it comes to marketing and advertising, Jeff focuses on programmatic streaming audio and video advertising, programmatic digital banner and video advertising, podcast advertising, and traditional media.
Jeff enjoys working in this industry because consumer behavior is always changing and technology is always advancing. He believes that what we need to achieve as a tenant of advertising may remain a constant; our learning, techniques, and approach must constantly evolve.
B.S. Business Management — Franklin & Marshall College
Chamber of Commerce — Lancaster and Harrisburg
Jeff attended Franklin & Marshall College on an academic scholarship. He bought his first house at age 20 and by age 24, he had started his own company.
In his free time, Jeff enjoys hiking with his wife and his dog, watching movies, and dining out.
Fun Fact: Jeff is practically ambidextrous as he does many things right-handed and many things left-handed. He also got the exact same score on both halves of his SATs!
Andy’s illustrious career in information technology spans over 20 years and includes experience working with Fortune-ranked companies. Since 2010, he’s served as the Chief Technology Officer and Executive Vice President at Synapse overseeing all things technology, development, and data.
His skill set is impressive and spans multiple disciplines. Just some of his experience includes technological development, data analysis, security, systems integration, and web applications. During his career, he’s worked on projects such as a massive ISP provisioning web application, conceptualized and coded technical support call tracking, and pioneered an automated Voice Over Internet Protocol (VOIP) solution by creating a custom process and workflow. Andy also played a key role in the development of an online price negotiation system that earned a US patent.
In addition to his myriad achievements in IT, he’s helped launch, host, and maintain hundreds of complex, innovative, and custom web properties including several Fortune 500 companies.
B.S. Computer Science/Mathematics — University of Pittsburgh
Synapse – Lead Programmer on projects winning more than 15 awards (W3, IMA, Marcom, Davey, Communicator, and PEAK awards) 2011-2015
Andy’s parents immigrated from Taiwan and Hong Kong to start a new life in the United States. They met over here and started their American dream of owning their own business and to give their children a better life. Andy’s very thankful for the life he was given.
Andy enjoys hiking, spending time with family and friends, playing with his dogs, checking out new tech, and generally helping others.
Fun Fact: Andy is a black belt in Tae Kwon Do / Moo Do Kwan.
Justin, our Director of Digital Strategy, provides Synapse with many years of experience in the marketing world. He is focused on organizational management, leadership, team motivation, and professional growth. He has a strong belief in process and efficiency, striving to perfect cross-channel and offline lead attribution. Most of all, he is passionate about staying on the cutting and bleeding edge of digital marketing strategy and tactics.
He has successful experience with creating, planning, managing, and executing strategic marketing plans to a diverse set of clients in myriad industries. Justin is adept at optimizing digital assets, user experiences, and maintaining positive client relationships. He’s driven to meet deadlines and bolster collaboration, with an aptitude for customer insight, research, and data analysis. Additional strengths include web design, exceeding KPIs, ROI, and a passion for content creation.
Justin thrives on the pace and ever-changing nature of marketing, especially digital. He knows that you should always be learning, experimenting, and as he says, “running at the horizon of what is now to be ready for what is next.”
B.A. Communications — The Pennsylvania State University
Google Partner Certifications in all Google Ads Disciplines; Certificate: SEO Academy of PA; Computing Principles (Stanford Online); Organizational Management Certificate (U. of Geneva)
AMA
Justin is proud to be a part of the Leadership team within Synapse. He has helped build a solid culture with lots of energy, freedom, commitment, and respect. Most of all, he has helped design a creative environment for marketers, developers, and designers of all backgrounds and experiences.
He believes that hard work and the resulting successes we have delivered to our clients is immeasurable.
Justin has a wife, two lovely daughters, and a dog named Bowser. He has a strong zest for life as he enjoys cocktails and dining and is always anticipating his next adventure or destination with family and friends. He is a 15 handicap golfer who avidly collects vintage mechanical watches. He also likes to meddle in photography and design on the side.
Fun Fact: He has 25+ tattoos, consisting of sea & nautical themes, mythology, American traditional, Star Wars, and life events.
Lauren has over 10 years of experience in Consultative Sales approach, quoting, negotiating, and sales retention. In addition, she’s been involved in advertising and marketing sales ranging from print, digital, and promotional items for over eight years. As an expert in client satisfaction, she works hard to deliver results to satisfy our clients. She has a keen understanding of ensuring that clients and companies are a good fit and that there will be a successful relationship.
Lauren thrives on drawing customers’ awareness of client products and building trust with them through the products and services we offer. She believes it is so important to be humble and that there is always something more to be learned in this industry.
A.A. General Studies, Art — Harrisburg Area Community College
Sales Training — Fred Pryor Seminars
CRM training —ACT!, Acctvantage, and Pipedrive CRM
Lauren was a member of the Lancaster PRE in a previous role and also attended many Lancaster County Chamber of Commerce shows.
She has been awarded for largest sales and calls during her sales career. Her highest reward is client satisfaction.
Being a mother is by far her greatest accomplishment and loves being an inspiration to her daughter.
Lauren has a daughter, a cat named Luna, and a dog named Jax. She is blessed to be surrounded by loving parents and grandparents. In her spare time, she enjoys traveling, hiking, singing, and painting. She also has a knack for furniture refurbishing and gardening.
Fun Fact: Lauren sang at Epcot in Disney in high school and she auditioned for the Voice in 2016.
Senior Account Manager, Alison Hall, is a master in project management. Her most-utilized skill, time management, helps her succeed in marketing campaigns and web projects that require extensive planning and management of project resources to ensure the timeline is met and the client expectation is exceeded.
Her commitment to our clients and dedication to the team all add to her many contributions to the team at Synapse. Bringing with her many years of experience in the field, she also serves as a mentor and leader of our Account Management team.
Alison enjoys the process of developing a client’s website, learning about their brand, customers, and goals. She works closely with designers to create the vision for the website and the developers bring the website to life.
Project Management Fundamentals
Philadelphia Direct Marketing Association
At Synapse, Alison holds the title for Best Ugly Sweater and Best Cornbread
Alison is blessed to have three amazing kids, a granddaughter, two dogs, and a bearded dragon. In her spare time, she enjoys spending time with family, going for walks, and hiking.
Fun Fact: Alison loves DIY projects — she can even fix a dryer!
Jen is a Senior Account Manager at Synapse who is highly motivated, skilled, and very adept at staying organized. She executes plans and projects efficiently while meeting targeted deadlines and expectations. Jen excels at exceeding her goals while always keeping a line of communication open. Her talents also lie with building professional relationships and collaborating with clients to find solutions to problems.
When she’s not busy taking care of complex and multi-faceted projects, Jen is always learning something new. She enjoys learning more about analytics and SEO because it helps understand how different marketing efforts contribute to overall performance through data and the ability to tell the story of a consumer.
B.S. Business Administration — Millersville University
Jen has two nephews and one niece whom she absolutely adores. She is a dog mom to two pups – Milo (Maltese) and Oliver (Cavapoo). The youngest of three, she enjoys spending quality time with her close-knit family. She’s also into working out and playing pickup/competitive volleyball.
Fun Fact: Jen is bilingual—she speaks English and Vietnamese.
Calen, one of our valued account managers, is laser-focused on organization, planning, and communication. His role at Synapse is critical as he is the point of contact for many of our clients. He works closely with our Strategy, Creative, Interactive, and QA teams as well as collaborating with other Account Managers and Executive Leadership. He brings additional skills and talents to Synapse including broadcasting, video production, voice-over work, and design.
Calen believes that there is always something new and that every project brings a new experience to be had or lessons to be learned. His positive and eager outlook has helped him be successful in some of our biggest projects to date.
B.S. Mass Communication & Media Studies — Millersville University
Calen started his own business and is looking forward to continuing to grow that in the future.
He lives in Gordonville, PA with his wife and two cats. Calen enjoys playing video games, hiking, camping, and working out in his spare time. He tells us he enjoys those activities, even more, when he’s able to do them with his wife.
Fun Fact: He’s a published journalist.
Laura brings a wealth of business experience. Throughout her career, Laura has built many of the marketing tools a company needs to grow. These include websites, sales funnels, and one-of-a-kind lead generators. She excels at keeping projects focused on big-picture objectives. An entrepreneur herself, Laura has built a business and has coached start-ups. She loves talking about business, economics, marketing, and design.
Laura says that when it comes to marketing, you can create win-win offers between a company and its customers. She believes that marketing is a great intersection of strategy and creativity. It is all about effective communication in the right places, at the right times.
Laura brings her “figure it out” personality to Synapse, and loves to learn. When she’s not busy marketing with other professionals, she spends her time finding new adventures with her family. She enjoys traveling, gardening, taking hikes, and working with her hands.
B.S. Entrepreneurship — Grove City College
StoryBrand Certified Guide, Business Made Simple (BMS) Coach
StoryBrand, Business Made Simple
Laura tells us that she has some great customer success stories which to her are meaningful.
Laura baked her own wedding cake!
She has spent time in 22 countries.
Sarah, our Senior Marketing Strategist, brings with her a wealth of knowledge across many subjects. Her main area of expertise in the digital marketing industry is in content marketing. Her vast skill set includes integrated marketing communications strategy; brand, campaign, and tactical planning; digital and social media management; PR and issues management; copywriting and editing; and strategic, data-driven content creation.
She is a storyteller. Sarah enjoys learning, discovering, and researching. It’s a major driving force in her work and it helps her develop meaningful and rich stories. She has enhanced awareness when it comes to identifying brands, customers, and people.
Sarah loves marketing because it keeps her motivated to stay ahead of the changes and allows her to learn and grow so that she can implement new tech, insights, and analytics into her work.
When she’s not busy with her nose in a book, Sarah enjoys hiking, playing the piano, and baking. She also likes to cheer on the Philadelphia Flyers and loves attending music concerts. Sarah lives in Wernersville with her husband and daughter.
B.A. History — University of Pennsylvania
M.A. Public History — Temple University
Leadership Berks 2017 graduate
Meals On Wheels America Share the Love Program Ambassador, 2016
Sarah is proud of her community and volunteer involvement: She delivers Meals on Wheels, volunteers for the United Way, cooks meals for the residents of Safe Berks, and has served on local committees, including the BCTV volunteer and Oktoberfest planning committee and the Easter Seals of Eastern Pennsylvania Development Committee. In 2021 she’s joining her local library’s board as well.
Sarah loves to sketch—whether it be portraits or spooky scenes. She also loves to try new crafts from candles to soap to holiday decorations, she enjoys trying it all!
Debra, our Senior Paid Media Specialist brings to Synapse a great deal of experience working with paid media and digital marketing. She’s been a part of just about any type of digital campaign there is including paid search, display ads, shopping campaigns, programmatic, remarketing, paid social, earned social, SEO, and content planning.
B.S. Marketing Management — Western Governors University
Debra lives in the New York Finger Lakes region.
Fun Fact: Debra is a coffee addict!
Allison, our Media Strategist, plays a critical role at Synapse. As a media buyer, she bridges the gap between traditional media and digital media in today’s ever-increasing digital world. Allison is an expert problem solver with the ability to quickly adapt to the changing marketing landscapes.
Her razor-sharp organizational skills allow her to excel in a variety of areas; strategizing complex marketing plans, balancing high-volume budgets, vendor communications & negotiations, project management, and client management. She works hard to craft strategic marketing plan recommendations that match our clients’ goals and to negotiate contracts with media vendors. Her attention to detail is vital when reconciling media expenses, ensuring the client receives the agreed-upon products/services. She effectively manages projects in project management software to ensure all campaign goals are continually being met.
B.S. Business, Marketing & Management — The Pennsylvania State University
Associates, Business Administration — Harrisburg Area Community College
Centro Digital Media Essentials Certification, StackAdapt Academy: Platform Certification, Google Ads Search Certification, Google Ads Display Certification, Google Ads Video Certification
Member of Alpha Sigma Lambda Adult Honor Society
With hard work and determination, Allison was able to pursue and achieve a Bachelor’s degree while working full-time. She also bought her first home at the age of 21.
Allison’s dog and two cats became big siblings earlier this year when she and her husband welcomed a beautiful baby girl into the world! In her spare time, Allison enjoys spending time with her family and she’s into cooking as well.
Fun Fact: She holds the titles for the Synapse Chili Cook-off Champion and the Synapse Master Mixologist.
CC is a Digital Strategist with over 6 years of experience in marketing, advertising, sales, and communications. Prior to coming to Synapse, she worked in-house on sales and marketing teams in the senior living industry and in the packaging manufacturing industry. She has been involved in a wide array of marketing campaigns and strategies over the years including branding, SEO, website and social media content creation, PPC campaigns, collateral & print, and more.
She believes her diverse background and experience have helped her become a “Jill of All Trades” as she likes to absorb as much as she can whether it’s in SEO, PPC, or branding. As a writer, CC enjoys finding the voice and tone of each client she works with and feels proud to represent them.
What CC loves most about marketing is how one idea can blossom into something that has the potential to have a profound effect on a business.
B.A. Sociology/Criminology – Millersville University
Certificate in Digital Marketing – University of Vermont
Google Skillshop – Search, Display, Video, Shopping Ads, Analytics IQ; Waze Ads Advanced
Playing Sousaphone in the Penn State Blue Band.
CC lives in Carlisle with her spouse and two cats named Mr. Darcy and Gandalf. In her free time, she enjoys playing her instruments (guitar, bass, drums, piano), playing Xbox, and spending time with her close-knit family. She also enjoys learning about the great ocean liners of the past.
Fun Fact: CC was once featured in the Wall Street Journal due to her addiction to Vitamin Water.
Jim is a Senior Graphic Designer at Synapse and his skill set includes expert-level knowledge in primary Adobe Creative Cloud applications including Adobe XD and Acrobat Pro. He also has working knowledge in Adobe After Effects and Premier Pro.
He brings forth talents that are becoming rare in the industry as he spent the earlier days of his career solely in print. With over 25 years of experience and counting, Jim’s seasoned expertise bridges both print and digital design. Now focused primarily in digital, he enjoys studying the psychology involved with design and typography.
He believes that as with many other fields, ongoing education is a necessity. With technology changing, seemingly on a daily basis, there are always skills to be sharpened and faster more efficient ways to craft a cutting-edge product for our clients.
Pennsylvania College of Art & Design
While he has won quite a few awards over the years, Jim says those awards were ultimately won as a team and that he could not have done his part without the support and expertise of the other Synapse team members.
Jim used his quarantine time to design and build his first cigarbox guitar. His next achievement… learning to play it.
When Jim isn’t cracking a dad joke, he is spending time with his wife and three children driving around in their ’66 Oldsmobile Cutlass convertible. He also owns and runs an antique shop in Lititz, PA with his wife.
Fun Fact: From heavy metal to blues to 1950s rock & roll, you can tell Jim’s mood by his music selection for the day.
Steve is a member of our creative team, serving as a Senior User Interface, User Experience & Digital Designer. Steve brings with him over 13 years of experience in the creative design industry. His focus is primarily on UI/UX and his strengths lie in creating interfaces that are not just aesthetically pleasing, but are functional, user-friendly, and engaging.
As a designer, he works closely with team members to expertly convey ideas on websites and other media—no matter how abstract or unique. In addition to graphic design, Steve has valuable skills in web design, WordPress, Drupal, HTML 5, SQL, XML, and the list goes on. He also has experience with oil painting, drawing, and fine art.
What Steve finds interesting about his field of study is how humans interact with computers.
B.F.A Graphic Design — Digital Media Arts College
Based out of Reading, PA, Steve enjoys rock climbing and adventures. He even teaches rock climbing classes to help others learn the sport.
Ryan is a motivated, fast-paced front-end developer who excels at turning client ideas into a reality. He has helped create some of our most impressive and complex website designs to date. No matter how abstract an idea, Ryan is able to develop it into a functional and aesthetically pleasing website. His development skills and experience include working in WordPress, usability, and UX/UI.
As an expert in user experience, Ryan ensures that every project we complete is user-friendly, intuitive, and clean. He knows that there is never just one way to do something and as technology changes, he’s always eager to try something new and creative.
B.S. Digital Communications – Lebanon Valley College
In his free time, Ryan enjoys sports, video games, and taking care of his lawn. He is also an avid hunter, outdoorsman, and has been known to build a deck or two.
Brett, or as he’s also referred to as, our Email Guru, enjoys his work at Synapse because he is able to create something from nothing just by using code. As an expert coder, he’s always striving to make our admin interfaces clean and easier to use without sacrificing anything.
With over 7 years of experience as a web developer, Brett has proven himself to be a seasoned web developer and a great asset to our team. His area of expertise includes a concentration on the front end of web development including creating responsive and non-responsive HTML emails and building custom designed websites from scratch. He can also develop any website that meets ADA compliance ranging from single-A all the way up to AAA.
Associates in Web Development — Berks Technical Institute
Certificate in Web Development — Lancaster County CTC
National Technical Honor Society Member
Presidents Honor Award
Brett has launched a variety of websites ranging from hard-coded sites to WordPress, to Shopify, and more. Brett graduated first in his class at BTI.
In his free time, Brett likes to play video games such as Warframe. He’s even into creating mods for older games as well.
Fun Fact: He has his own computer server running 24/7. Which means he can access any of his own media (movies, tv shows, pictures, home movies, music, etc.) from anywhere in the world.
Angie is a bright, eager, and intelligent Front End Developer. Her impressive skill set includes knowledge in WordPress, HTML, CSS, PHP, and Javascript, with a sampling of MYSQL and Vue.js. As a Front End Developer, Angie is a critical member of our interactive team at Synapse. Her talents lie in creating visually pleasing, functional, and user-friendly websites that follow our strict internal standards of achievement.
Angie works closely with Account Management, Creative, QA, and Strategy teams to craft bespoke websites that exceed client expectations. With over 13 years of hands-on development experience, her ability to think on the fly and adapt to a fast-paced environment has helped her flourish as a developer.
Angie enjoys her work at Synapse because she likes creating the “cool things” on the sites that people interact with. She finds it very rewarding to create something that others will enjoy.
Associate Degree in Specialized Business, Computer Systems Specialist
Her greatest personal achievement is being told that she is a good mother and being creative in her work.
Her hobbies including gaming, D&D, spending time with her wife, and taking care of her 6-year-old son.
As a Senior Web Developer, Nam builds and creates fully-customized, functional, and cutting-edge websites. He strives to build websites better and faster for our clients.
As technology continues to advance, Nam’s skill set also advances as he likes to stay current with everything new. His expertise includes working in databases, PHP, and Javascript. He’s also studied VueJS, Laravel, SPA, WordPress, and NodeJS—all of which have greatly contributed to his talents in web development.
What he most enjoys about this industry is the satisfaction of building websites and applications properly with regard to function and speed. As an ace in problem-solving and troubleshooting, Nam is always looking for that “Ah hah!” moment.
B.S. Information Technology — Central Penn College
Nam is a proud father of two beautiful children and is a supportive husband to his wife who plans to open her own business. He enjoys spending time with his little ones and when he does have a free moment, he is learning woodworking.
Claude is a full-stack developer with deep knowledge in many different programming languages, including mobile and desktop development. He also has knowledge of lexer/compiler design and building.
He is focused on using innovation to solve problems that have not yet been solved. Claude is constantly learning new frameworks, technologies, and programming languages to assist him with problem-solving. He’s also been studying and practicing React.js and cloud services on AWS to further enhance his development skills.
B.S. Computer Engineering and Computer Science — Elizabethtown College
Claude’s experience with coding began at age 12 and he became certified in C# at the age of 13.
In college, he developed a schedule generator for fun and it quickly became popular with engineering students. He eventually pitched it to the school, they bought it, and his custom scheduling tool is still in use today at the college!
Claude comes from a pretty diverse family. They’re trilingual and mainly speak French at home. His mother is Armenian-Egyptian, while his dad was born in Egypt but in a different governorate called Ismalia. They have Lebanese roots, thus their family name Abounegm is actually a composite name: Abou Negm, meaning Father of Stars in Arabic.
Fun Fact: Claude speaks French, Arabic, and English. He learned to speak Arabic in school in Egypt as his family spoke mostly French. He then learned English through movies and music.
Tema’s 25+ years of experience in the graphic and printing field has led her to be a seasoned QA expert. Her work at Synapse includes proofing, testing, and reviewing websites, applications, emails, and collateral as well as making sure our products can adapt smoothly and seamlessly across any platform. Serving as a liaison between our Interactive, Creative, and Account Management teams, she’s is the glue that holds us together.
Tema’s dedication and wisdom contribute greatly to our company. She is very passionate about each project that comes through our doors and works hard to maintain Synapse’s internal standards of quality and client expectations. She enjoys working in this field because it’s ever-changing and always evolving.
Raising her kids so they grow up to be great at whatever they want to do and that they’ll be good to themselves and others.
When she’s not spending time with her husband, son, daughter, and fur babies, she’s likely attending a concert, watching an old movie, or working on arts & crafts.
Fun Fact: Tema’s been to over 80 concerts from the Grateful Dead to Slayer and everything in between. She tells us, “Now do you believe in rock and roll, can music save your mortal soul? (Don McLean – American Pie Lyrics). I know it saved my soul many, many times.”
Our team is made of talented and experienced professionals. Our ideas help businesses win in today’s competitive marketplace. Since 2006 – day one – that’s been our commitment.
We take pride in doing our job well and in serving others. We understand that part of our clients’ success rest in our hands. We know every dollar counts.
We hold ourselves accountable for results. We like to win.
We want our clients to win. We want you to win.
Many of our team members have 10 or more years’ experience in their field. Specialists at heart, we believe digital professionals today must understand the big picture, too. We remain curious, we learn, and we are encouraged to push the boundaries.
We’d love to show you what we are all about.
Schedule a Free ConsultationOur team is made of talented and experienced professionals. Our ideas help businesses win in today’s competitive marketplace. Since 2006 – day one – that’s been our commitment.
We take pride in doing our job well and in serving others. We understand that part of our clients’ success rest in our hands. We know every dollar counts.
We hold ourselves accountable for results. We like to win.
We want our clients to win. We want you to win.
Many of our team members have 10 or more years’ experience in their field. Specialists at heart, we believe digital professionals today must understand the big picture, too. We remain curious, we learn, and we are encouraged to push the boundaries.
We’d love to show you what we are all about.
Schedule a Free Consultation