History of TM
Owner/Producer Rick Tracewell started a small advertising and marketing agency in the Santa Cruz area of Northern California in 1990 called BONK! Productions. Rick is also a musician and when he was in high school, he'd write lyrics for his band's songs and instead of saying, "let's put our heads together to finish this song," he'd say, "let's bonk heads." When he was thinking of a name for his new company, BONK! had a creative connotation to it, so it stuck.
His work with BONK! included consulting with small to medium-sized businesses on their marketing focus and how to target their business message directly to their customers. Naturally, this work included the gamut of design - from graphic design, radio, television, to, eventually, the Internet.
In early 1994, Rick was presented with the opportunity to build a fully relational Real Estate database on the web (something that was very difficult to do during the early stages of the Internet's commercialized life) while at the same time creating a visually exciting web site and marketing plan. That project was one of the early winners of Point Communications Top 5% of the Web award as well as the recipient of press coverage from such prestigious news organizations as the New York Times, San Jose Mercury News, San Francisco Chronicle, Wall Street Journal, CBS Radio Network, and many more.
Rick briefly took on a partner in the mid-90s where the company name changed to TNT Media. The partnership dissolved, but the name stayed. Rick was creating web sites at the beginning of the Internet's explosion into the mainstream, so he was lucky enough to be asked to speak at seminars around the country, write articles and columns as well as several books and chapters of books on the web's commercial potential for businesses, he was quoted and interviewed in dozens of newspapers and magazines, and even appear in an infomercial selling web-in-a-box services (yeah, that didn't last).
The media attention brought high-profile web design projects from the likes of Canon USA, Silicon Graphics, Netscape, The Oakland Raiders, The Pittsburgh Steelers, The Oakland A's, Willie Mays, Jim Plunkett, and many more. TNT Media garnered dozens of Internet awards for creating visually exciting and highly functional web sites throughout the late 1990s.
Since the turn of the century (that sounds odd, doesn't it?), the company started helping real estate professionals and brokerage firms to market themselves to home buyers and sellers as well as other real estate professionals. From digital photography and videography to print ad design and marketing materials to web design and virtual tours, and now with Real Estate DVDs, the company has helped create a professional image for dozens of individual real estate professionals and companies.
In 2004, Rick's wife Kristi began working full-time with the company and their oldest children Morgan and Kelsey started helping out after school. Rick decided to make the name of the company reflect the family run organization that it is by changing the name to Tracewell Media.
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