vitamin^®

Born to a family of Greek immigrants (from Sparta), Amanda grew up in the public eye. “I practically lived in my family’s diner,” she says. She ran the cash register in fifth grade. During her teens, she mastered the art of communicating with the public, from promotion to community relations to damage control. Interacting with hundreds of people daily, she found she had a knack for making a diversity of people feel comfortable.

From the ages of 13 to 18, Amanda was a lacrosse junkie. She helped found the first grade-school lacrosse program in Ithaca, NY, and she quickly earned a starting position as attack wing. Her abilities caught the eye of the woman’s lacrosse program at Towson University, where she ultimately earned her bachelor’s degree in business and marketing.

While at Towson University, Amanda studied abroad in Sevilla, Spain (at the Universidad de Sevilla) where she lived with a host family and learned to converse quite fluently in Spanish. Prior to graduating, she landed a job with one of the country’s top 100 design firms: the now defunct Gr8. A series of events, which eventually sent the company into bankruptcy, caused the sudden resignation of Gr8’s PR director. Amanda suddenly found herself in charge of Gr8’s corporate communications. As the company slowly unraveled (and jilted workers took their stories to the press), Amanda earned a trial-by-fire degree in crisis communications.

In 2001 she was hired by Planit, a Baltimore ad agency, to establish the company’s public relations department. She successfully launched and managed the department, overseeing its growth into a highly profitable enterprise. During her tenure, Amanda grew the department into a five-person team while also handling new business development, PR writing, account management, personnel management, and the agency’s own PR plan.

In 2005, Amanda founded Vitamin's public relations department to round out the firm's holistic approach to marketing. As a result, Vitamin became the only boutique in the mid-Atlantic to offer a comprehensive marketing strategy where service quality and final deliverables are equally balanced across all disciplines.

Mike grew up working in his family business where he quickly learned the value and importance of relationships, running a tight ship, and operating debt-free - strictly on a cash basis. These values drive Vitamin to this very day.

At the age of 15, Mike rescued a 1982 Pontiac Trans Am from the junkyard. He rebuilt and restored the car using his own money and his own hands. It took him five years to complete the restoration and he drove that car as his everyday vehicle for years to come. His love of mechanics resulted in seven consecutive years of employment behind parts counters in Pennsylvania and Maryland.

Throughout high school, Mike was never much of a grade earner. As a result, he found himself at a junior college near Scranton, PA. Quickly realizing how important grades were, Mike earned a 4.0 his first semester and immediately transferred to Towson University where he graduated with a bachelor’s degree in mass communication, along with a minor in English.

Working for what was then known as MBNA America, Mike was employed as a credit card debt collector for his first "real" job. The position taught him the meaning of professionalism. It also taught him how to cold call and close difficult sales; attributes that would prove paramount to Vitamin's early success as a start-up.

Following his time at MBNA, Mike gained design, marketing, and communications experience as the operations manager for G.1440, which was then a web, branding, and technology firm.

While with G.1440, Mike managed creative teams, helped close sales, wrote contracts, pitched new business, and managed the production of creative projects as well as web technology projects.

Mike envisioned a company that handled print, public relations, and web design cohesively, and with as much respect to process as possible. And, with as much respect to the client’s success. Shortly thereafter, Vitamin was born.