Hello, Amber! New captain to steer the CG Cookie Ship

Tl;dr CG Cookie gets a new project lead! Amber Kelly, previously our Support Team Lead, becomes the main coordinator of CG Cookie’s content and growth efforts, allowing previous project lead Wes Burke to focus on high-level initiatives and CG Cookie’s parallel projects.

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After welcoming Paul Caggegi to CG Cookie as our latest 2d-man on the ground, there’s another shakeup happening in the team!

First, let’s back up.

For years, Wes Burke has been steering the cookie ship, from our early days as a digital art WordPress blog to the latest milestone, the move to our own hosting platform, Mavenseed.

Though Wes’ role is officially the CEO, in reality he has always been knee-deep in CG Cookie’s day-to-day, helping put out fires while simultaneously keeping a bird’s eye view of the company. 

Meanwhile, parallel projects keep sprouting up under Wes’ hands faster than you can say “impending system malfunction”: The Orange Turbine is our offshoot consulting branch for Blender studios. Blender Market is, of course, the internet’s first Blender-only marketplace, founded by CG Cookie and Mavenseed (CG Cookie’s new home) also needs lots of TLC to grow. 

And those are just the projects that have seen daylight thus far…

On top of that, Wes has approximately 4 kids and a mean bike that demands to hit the tracks once in a while. 

In his own words, “The track is a place I can go where there is no room for thought other than what’s in front of me. It’s therapeutic.’

So what’s an overstretched CEO to do with all the fish he has to fry?

Bring in a shark, of course.

Amber isn’t new to CG Cookie: she’s been with us for nearly a year, wrangling daily support tickets which gave her an opportunity to get to know the way the Cookie crumbles. She has become an indispensable part of the crew and was unanimously declared a perfect fit for stepping in for Wes as he moves on to a higher plane of existence - that is, focusing on high-level oversight of the Cookie.

We will all be in safe hands. Amber has decades of experience as a project leader, customer success guru, and all-around liaison. She finds great joy in being the conduit between the company and the rest of the world.

Now, what’s up with the “Shark” thing?

Outside of customer support and severe empathy, Amber sails boats. On her longest trip, she delivered a catamaran from St Thomas to Sarasota between the hurricanes. She has worked on a tall ship - aka pirate ship - where she is referred to as Shark (there you have it!). She also rides a Harley Iron and has traveled the world, including two trips to war zones of Iraq, Kuwait, and Qatar.  

Safe to say, we trust her to handle our crew.