One of the most rewarding (and most challenging) things about my role as advertising director here at The Saratogian is building - and maintaining - a sales force. My 14 person team is charged with selling into numerous print publications (one daily, three weeklies and a monthly magazine), saratogian.com, and video in addition to Yahoo!, local expos, promotions and contests. The current team is one of the finest I've ever led or worked with, which brings me to my sad task at hand. One of them is leaving.

His name is Jarvis Idowu and he's taken a teaching position in South Korea. A once in a lifetime opportunity! While attending Skidmore College as a Philosophy major, Jarvis took a leave of absence to work on President Obama's campaign in Lima, Ohio. After graduation, he came straight to The Saratogian and spent most of last year learning the ropes in the new multimedia advertising sales environment. Jarvis doesn't remember a time when selling advertising for a local newspaper or magazine was a print game. He, unlike his more seasoned colleagues, has a high comfort level with the multimedia advertising platform and consultative sales strategy - one that requires an integrative (print, digital and video) approach to helping clients' businesses succeed. As Jarvis prepares to make his journey to South Korea, I begin my search for his replacement. Legacy (print only) sales reps need not apply. I'm looking for my next multimedia sales star!

-The silver lining? We've asked Jarvis to blog for us while he's teaching English at Chung Dham private school (South Korean equivalent to the Unites States' Kaplan program). Stay tuned for his adventures.