I Invite You To Know Me Better

Jaime Collins with headset.PNG

I am an experienced leader, a strategic communications expert, and a marketing wizardess who balances the art and science of marketing to achieve both immediate and enduring impacts.

With talent, experience, and mindful intent, I aim for results by triggering emotional responses that change behavior among target audiences. Optimistic and purpose-driven, I lead, serve, create, differentiate, and advance by re-imagining pathways to a better world.

Digging Deeper

Authenticity

People turn to me for guidance, advice, and insight. I am a mentor and teacher, advocate and leader. My character is one of honesty and integrity and compassion, and I am unafraid of being vulnerable.

In the midst of the pandemic, my team created a fun way to recognize co-workers with messages on heart stickers. A colleague placed this on my door.

In the midst of the pandemic, my team created a fun way to recognize co-workers with messages on heart stickers. A colleague placed this on my door.

Unique Impact

I am naturally motivated to engage both the analytical and creative sides of my brain, and it is through a beautiful and unique range of personal experiences that I honed a finely-tuned ability to connect emotionally with my audiences, both personal interactions as well as strategic communications.

Sometimes driving volumes for recommended elective procedures can also save lives. When I was too young to remember, my grandmother nearly died of colon cancer. These and other factors converged to make this a regular priority. Here, I sought to surprise my audience, engage those of a particular age, create a memorable image as well as a sticky message that served to change the narrative around colonoscopies. And change behavior.

Vision

My sense of self, my optimism, and my unrelenting yearning to improve lives is what nourishes my soul. I see the beauty in individuals and exquisite potential in their relationships to one another, and I feel innately driven to leverage my life and my talents and my human capacity to create enduring change.

A very thoughtful, homemade Boss’s Day gift I received in 2018.

A very thoughtful, homemade Boss’s Day gift I received in 2018.

Perspective

My naturally analytical predisposition tilts me toward intentional and logical methodologies, yet acting swiftly and boldly and taking necessary risks brings balance to my customarily logical and disciplined approach.

Like most everything in life, the Eiffel Tower can be seen from a great many perspectives. This hopeful, humanistic one is one of my favorites.

Like most everything in life, the Eiffel Tower can be seen from a great many perspectives. This hopeful, humanistic one is one of my favorites.

Critical Reflection

I’m on a life-long journey to continually improve my understanding of the ancient beliefs that not only obscured my own truth and for decades kept me imprisoned in the wrong gender but also function to oppress and marginalize so many others. I pursue this education as a practice of freedom.

I ran my first Marathon in Milwaukee in 1996. Here I am back in Milwaukee in 2017 on the eve of my first marathon as my authentic self.

I ran my first Marathon in Milwaukee in 1996. Here I am back in Milwaukee in 2017 on the eve of my first marathon as my authentic self.

Meaning

I am focused on creating consequential and lasting change for individuals, organizations, structures, and cultures. Though I used to to just dive in and do things, I’ve learned to begin by listening and understanding before moving forward to create a shared vision and strategy.

Thank you card I received after doing a Health Literacy Out Loud podcast on cultural competency in treating transgender patients.

Thank you card I received after doing a Health Literacy Out Loud podcast on cultural competency in treating transgender patients.

Value

Crossing tasks off my list feels good, yet there’s another path I love far more — working to deliver more than what’s expected. Through resourcefulness and inventiveness I breathe greater life into my work, always seeking to deliver extra value.

Here I am MCing a very successful PRIDE Fest in the Park, the first ever such event in southwest Wisconsin. In standing in my own vulnerability, I inspired many others that day to stand in community and deliver their own unrehearsed narratives.

Here I am MCing a very successful PRIDE Fest in the Park, the first ever such event in southwest Wisconsin. In standing in my own vulnerability, I inspired many others that day to stand in community and deliver their own unrehearsed narratives.

Endurance

I consistently demonstrate resiliency and persistence in difficult challenges, both those I seek out as well as those delivered to my doorstep. With the myriad tools I possess, there is nothing I cannot face successfully with courage and determination.

On top of Mount Marcy, the highest peak in the Adirondacks. Coming back to form athletically after my gender transition was a years-long feat of endurance. This day in August 2021, I slayed this mountain and ate it for lunch. I find power and resilience in nature, and it delights me to know I can do, be, or achieve anything.

On top of Mount Marcy, the highest peak in the Adirondacks. Coming back to form athletically after my gender transition was a years-long feat of endurance. This day in August 2021, I slayed this mountain and ate it for lunch. I find power and resilience in nature, and it delights me to know I can do, be, or achieve anything.


Biographical Detail

I would not trade places with anyone. Who I am today and all I have to offer is the result of spectacular personal growth throughout my life.

It all began simply enough. I grew up in southwest Wisconsin and have lived here much of my life. Yet I’ve also lived and worked on three continents and have enjoyed for more than three decades an extended family in France.

After a decades-long journey of discovery, I came out as transgender in 2016. Through that journey, I learned and unlearned the cultural and societal dictates that had for five decades kept me imprisoned in a gender that wasn’t mine. That journey also opened for me extraordinary new pathways in community leadership, activism, and the previously unseen potential to courageously reinvent ourselves and the world.

Learning is how we grow. Unlearning is how we create a better world.

A big part of that journey was a joyful and adventure-filled decade in Lake Placid, NY in the heart of the Adirondack Mountains. Those years helped shape my soul as well as my professional skills and experience. It was there that the wisdom of the wilderness opened my heart to new truths, from the reality of my gender to the power of creativity to the depths of my resilience and to all the human actions, grand and mundane, that make the world what it is. I return there often for the inspiration and healing power of those wilds.

In recent years, my learning journey continued as as part of a remarkable health care team with a relentless drive to rise above. One-hundred fifty percent net revenue growth, consistently reaching the top percentiles nationally in patient satisfaction, and forging a remarkable organizational culture of quality and reliability are some of what we’ve achieved recently. Massive building projects, industry leading and continually rising levels of employee engagement, consistently increasing patient volumes, and corresponding sea changes in market share and out-migration are other key achievements. It’s been an honor to learn from and work with a high performance team in creating a very special rural health care system.

I am also a wife, a parent, a grandparent, an endurance athlete, and a steadfast advocate for people, for the Earth, for health, for kindness, and for meaningful change.

In an interesting snippet of family history, my daughter Chloe, the eldest of two, attended the Alliance Francaise in 2013, twenty five years after I did. This is Chloe in the Jardin de Luxembourg in Paris, just two blocks from that center of French language excellence and culture we both attended.

In an interesting snippet of family history, my daughter Chloe, the eldest of two, attended the Alliance Francaise in 2013, twenty five years after I did. This is Chloe in the Jardin de Luxembourg in Paris, just two blocks from that center of French language excellence and culture we both attended.

GOOD WORDS FROM OTHERS

“The board of North Country School/Camp Treetops would like to extend its grateful and heartfelt appreciation to Jaime Collins for [her] excellent work spearheading the new marketing initiative. Marketing was something new to NCS/CTT and was not something the institution ‘took to’ quickly or easily, despite the recognized need for it. Jaime’s patience, tactfulness, listening skills, consensus building and diligent research were the perfect match for the task, and the results will put the institution on firm ground as it moves forward into its future. As a result of Jaime’s work, NCS/CTT now has excellent positioning statements very attractive and effective taglines, logos, word marks, stationery, and flash photo treatments of same for its website — all long hoped for deliverables — but more than anything else, it has a new appreciation and understanding of how to integrate marketing into most decision making processes. NCS/CTT will always be indebted to Jaime for [her] work, and wishes [her] great success with [her] new opportunity. “

— Matthew Salinger and the NCS/CTT Board of Directors, Lake Placid, NY

 

“Jaime is an incredibly intelligent and creative person. She challenges and encourages me to think about things in new perspectives -- whether it's business and marketing, or societal issues such as our environment or obesity. I love that Jaime is deliberate in her thoughts and that she truly listens to you. I know that in personal and work settings she is viewed as a leader who gets things done. What's remarkable is that she combines this passion and personal drive with integrity, character and compassion.”

— Mike Milligan, President, Legato Healthcare Marketing

"In a world of dull, overly confident marketing professionals, Jaime is an absolute diamond. I have worked with Jaime for over a decade on a multitude of creative projects. Jaime’s expertise, precision, and compassion are felt at every step. She has a way of taking the mundane corporate necessity and creating a brilliant light that focuses a careful vision and balanced message, and thus, creating personal moments for the individual in a range of marketing conversations. It has always felt intensely human when Jaime creates campaigns or messaging for any project that she is a part of. I can think of very few people that I have worked with who have not only made my work better but also made me a better person, too."

— Jeremy Iaquinto, Independent Design Professional, Lake George, NY

 

“Let me take a moment to say THANK YOU for the outstanding work you did for me and The Women’s Center. 

 The introductory video was creative, polished, informative and entertaining.  I truly feel the video captured and articulated the essence of my practice and our mission. The advertising copy, including the web content was spot on.  The photographic stills were well composed, and complemented the words effectively. Our needs from a marketing perspective evolved when Dr. Ogden joined the practice. The campaign to introduce our new doc and portray the team well represented that phase of our clinic. I am especially appreciative of how we incorporated the surgical staff in the photo shoot. 

A surgeon is only as good as the team, and the marketing photos wonderfully portrayed this truth. I find our collaboration for those two phases was spot on, and was a credit to this organization. “

— Kim Mackey, MD, OBGYN, formerly Southwest Health Chief Medical Officer and Director of Women’s Health

AWARDS & RECOGNITIONS

Community/Business Leader in LGBTQ Support - awarded by UW Platteville’s Doyle Center for Gender and Sexuality in May, 2019

President’s Award For Outstanding Service - awarded by the Platteville Regional Chamber of Commerce, Spring, 2015

Accredited Member, Wisconsin Healthcare Pubic Relations and Marketing Society (WHPRMS)

Numerous WHPRMS Communications Review Awards of Excellence - 1990s

Imagine.

Strategic Communication that Changes Lives.

Let’s Cross the Bridge Between US

If you believe our passions or purposes align,

I invite you to reach out.