President Steve Bernstein of Kansas City’s Bernstein-Rein confirmed tips shared by several readers last week: Chief Creative Officer Brian Brooker will soon leave to go client-side.
Bernstein tells us that Brooker has accepted an ECD position at Garmin Industries, the KC-based industrial production company currently best-known for making GPS and other navigational devices. He will officially begin his new gig next month.
From Bernstein:
“We’re both happy and sad for [Brian]. This is where he wants to be in his career right now…he leaves us in good shape with good staff doing some of our best work, but I wish he were with us for a little longer.”
Brooker takes more than 30 years’ worth of ad industry experience to the Garmin role. After starting his career as a writer with Bernstein-Rein in the early 80s, he spent more than a decade as CEO/CCO at fellow KC agency Barkley, which describes itself as “the largest employee-owned advertising agency in the U.S.,” before joining B-R again in 2011. He also held the VP and CD positions at GSDM and served as CCO at Austin-based social change agency Sherry Matthews Advocacy Marketing.
Bernstein tells us that Brooker’s departure is not related to that of EVP/Growth Officer Jules Boasberg, who now holds the SVP/CMO position at Kansas City’s Consumer Orbit, or SVP of Strategy Ric Brockmeier. Both left the agency in recent weeks after client LPL Financial ended its relationship Bernstein-Rein.
According to Bernstein, the agency has already begun searching for a new top creative to replace Brooker.
On a side note, Brooker may be the only person in advertising who uses his Twitter feed exclusively for poetry.